Sushi Lover Madison — Restaurant in Madison

We went on Saturday and were greeted by a husky bearded guy that explained how they operate as only an all-you-can-eat establishment, and asked us if that was what we wanted or not. Kinda sounded slightly aggressive but at least he was a little more smiley than the Asian guy at the host’s area. At this point, we haven’t even been seated. Wouldn’t their job be just to greet us w a smile first, seat us, and then have a server explain what their restaurant was all about?

Anyway our server, the lady’s green hair was AMAZING! Totally made us feel welcomed at the restaurant and definitely made up for the other two men’s lack of smile. She explained and let us know what our options were, answered all of our questions, knew everything on the menu.

My partner and I ordered an asst of Sushi, sushi rolls and appetizers. I am definitely impressed w their speediness, something that their competitors Sake could take notes on. The Sushi was fine w a reasonable portion of rice, not the typical Chinese owners’ method of loading it w as much rice as possible to get the customer full faster. I appreciate that. I would say the only issue is that even though there is much variety of sushi rolls to choose from, they all start to taste more or less the same. Plus some items that they say is crab, they actually mean imitation crab. The sushi pieces were nice. For a dinner price I would have expected there to be a nice offering of sashimi pieces like Sake or Milwaukee Jin Sushi and Seafood, but you have to pay extra on top of the dinner price for that. Their quality of fish is fresher than most Chinese-owned sushi restaurants in Madison. So far they have had good integrity regarding that aspect. Lots of sushi restaurants here in Madison will not throw their bad fish away and just turn it to a spicy mixture roll of sine sort. I was not able to detect any shady practices of that nature so I’m happy about that, but I was surprised to find a piece of plastic wrap on my sushi roll that I had almost eaten. But that’s a simple error.

The appetizers were decent. The fried catfish was definitely a star item. It was fried to perfection and the fish was moist and flaky and perfect. The mango Kani salad was good as well. There was an older man that handed appetizers to our table, needs to have a little more smile. He just looked grumpy both times he served us fried food.

Overall it was a nice first time visit, good luck w your business. I’ll definitely be back. That waitress is a star!!! She’s awesome. Please put Hotate scallops on ur menu. That is one reason I’d go to Sake vs Sushi Lover, despite Sakes terrible service. Plus charging dinner prices and not offering special sashimi or not may make me go to Mke Jin’s Sushi and Seafood. The male employees need to be more approachable and smiley. Also they force everyone to get all you can eat if you’re in a big party, meaning you have a small appetite or can’t eat as much, this is not the place to go. Keep up the good work....

Went here with my sister (her first time and my second time) and the waiter nor hostess explained anything to her. As i have been there before I explained to her and she also heard a different waiter explain it to the next table over and understood for the kost part. Our waiter was horrible. He only came to our table 2 times in the 3 hours we were there. Only got 2 orders of sushi. Never refilled our waters and we had to constantly asked multiple times for the items we ordered. My sister had ordered dessert and he brought out our check. She asked about the dessert and he rudely said hell put it and to "ask" next time. When we looked at the check they had a 5.00$ leftover fee on there. We ate pretty much everything between the 2 of us and what was left on the plate was 5 pieces of sushi. 2 from me and 3 from her. We asked and the waiter said that its 50 cents per roll left over if there is more than 3 per person. Then why were we charged? We asked for the manager and explained that the service was not good and asked about the fee. The manager lady was very rude and condescending stating that the waiter was new and that we "should" have read in the menu that they charge a leftover fee and it was 50 cents per roll leftover for each person. When we explained to her that with two people and only have 5 sushi left over, 2 from me and 3 frome her, we shouldnt be charged due to her explanation that it was 3 pieces or more per person. She called us stupid and said that were getting charged for all the sushi. Even if it was 50 cents per sushi. The math still isnt mathing. .50X5= 2.50. So where did the extra come from to make 5.00$. Blamed it in the waiter being new and us being too stupid to understand the rule. As we were leaving she was telling her servers and hostess to make sure that they explain the rule clearly because of stupid people and pointed to us as we walked by.

And to top off the already horrible service, they had the audacity to add a tip into my bill when i did not leave one. Only noticed when the charge hit my account and was way more than what i had to pay to leave that horrible place. I called them and was told by the rude manager that there was a tip added and that it cant be changed and that the waiter deserved to be tipped for trying to help idiots and hung up the phone on me.

NEVER will go here again. And most definitely will never recommend nor suggest this...

The first thing I noticed was how pretty the place is! The decor is super fancy, they have little artificial waterfalls in the entrance and a flame effect in the dining area. I didn't know what an all you can eat sushi restaurant consisted of—how it works, if you're confused like me, is your entire meal costs $30, regardless of how much you order. The waitress was very sweet and attended to us regularly. She was a little timid, but given this place is brand new, I wasn't worried about it (I feel more comfortable around timid people anyway—social anxiety). I started with the shumai and eel roll. The eel roll came first, and it was excellent. The shumai was piping hot and super tasty with a nice crunch. Then I got the crunchy roll—wasnt exactly what I was expecting, could've used more sauce, but it was tasty nonetheless. Crab isn't my favorite, but I still ate all of them because they were so tasty. Then I had the caterpillar roll (eel and cucumber with avocado and eel sauce). Absolutely top tier. Then I finished off with fried Oreos, and it was like I was at the fair. I'd love to know what the custard(?) they come with is, because it tasted SO GOOD. I also had a piece of my partner's rainbow roll, and it tasted so fresh! Overall, if you have a healthy appetite, it's absolutely 100% worth the price. They also have a few vegetarian and vegan options, marked with one or two leaves, as well as spicy options, marked by a pepper. (Love it when spicy options are clearly marked—I can't stand spicy, so I need to know...