The Journey — Restaurant in Madison

Food was absolutely egregious. You know it’s bad when the best option at a Chinese buffet is the Garlic Bread. This has been by far the most bland, disgusting, low effort food I’ve seen in any buffet. I suspect that the 5 star reviews are bot accounts, as this place is completely past their prime and living off false promises of exquisite wide array of food options. For a Madison area restaurant, having 2000 reviews is comparable to local favorites like Parkway and Tornado, which means that this restaurant is absolutely falsifying reviews. Consider World Buffet in Monona.

Food - 1/10 Coconut Shrimp A palatable hallmark in any other Chinese buffet, but somehow one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Smallest frozen shrimp I’ve ever seen, the batter was barely staying on, there was zero coconut to justify the plate as “Coconut Shrimp”, the end plate ended up as a bonafide soup, even if it could be justified as such.

Steamed Fish Absolutely flavorless, seems to be boiled simply for the sake of edibility, ending up with a soggy wet mess of mush.

Chicken and Broccoli Chicken was one of the toughest piece of meats I’ve ever had. Sauce was somehow flavorless and gunky, the broccoli was definitely frozen and dissolved into piles of fiber gunk on my tongue.

General Tsos Indicated as spicy, but I couldn’t even get a hint of spiciness nor sourness. Unfortunately, even a microwaved meal would have more flavor and taste comparatively to this sad mess.

Pho Station was an absolute mess. Completely unmaintained machines, rusted over, bleaching whatever into the soup. Otherwise, offputting tastes, and soggy noodles made the station absolutely terrible even disregarding the bits of meat cooked over the day floating as scum over the baskets of water.

Hibachi Somehow even the hibachi is a mess. The meat options were all extremely cheap tough cuts, which was barely palatable after being set on the grill and cooked to hell.

Ribs Extremely dry, overcooked mess that cuts the roof of your mouth worse than captain crunch.

Green Beans An extreme amount of grit that wasn’t garlic ended up in my mouth, whether that was poor sanitation or cross contamination that absolutely ruined any taste the dish had.

Teriyaki Chicken Skewer Calling this dish teriyaki should be considered slander, it was bland beyond all means, the only hint of salt was the dust that was on my plate.

Mussel Bake Definitely decomposing gross mussels. One bite of the mussel squirt bitter sour liquid into my mouth, which immediately made me spit it out back onto the plate.

Crap Rangoon An extremely hard dish to mess up but somehow achieved by Journey. Not only was it soft, and gummy, the insides had absolutely zero imitation crab.

Stuffed Crab Barely palatable, lukewarm and bland beyond all means. At this point, I’ve had 5-6 different dishes completely based using crappy gummy crab meat.

Pepper Steak Toughest pieces of meat I’ve ever had, my fork couldn’t pierce a 1/4 in slice no matter how much pressure I put on the piece.

Sushi Absolutely overcooked rice, soggy sad looking pieces of California. The heavily reused crab meat premiers in over 6 of the 9 types of sushi, not to mention the “mystery” sushi that premiered in the tempura form, as well as “White Fish” (non specified fish on card), “Red Fish”, and other extremely suspect pieces of “sushi”. Absolutely horrid conditions and sanitation, all pieces came with a bitter aftertaste with a lukewarm to warm temperature that even a tsunami of soy sauce couldn't save.

Dessert - You’d assume that they shouldn’t be able to mess up prepackaged deserts, but at this point my expectations were lower than the rings of hell. Strawberry Cake was coagulated and warm. The espresso cake was WARM. THE COCONUT CAKE WAS WARM. Poorly temperature regulated, unsanitary, and expired sweets.

EVEN THE FORTUNE COOKIE!!!???!! The fortune cookie was stale and expired. Not only was it able to completely unfold back into the pancake shape, it was an even worse end to my meal and would have fared better without.

PLEASE DO...

Okay, I had been meaning to try The Journey since it opened several years ago. Just never made it there until I had lunch there last March (2018). I was very excited to finally be going on my Journey!

I had heard good and great things about The Journey, and I had heard bad. This was from the Internet, a lot of people I know, and even strangers. Over half the time I heard good or great, but I have actually instigated more than one heated argument between people about this debate. Unfortunately, after visiting I have to agree with the people that would say it is more on the bad side.

When I first walked into The Journey, I was very impressed. I filled up my first plate with goodies and already was convinced I would become a regular customer. But when the actual eating started, I am sad to say that I was definitely let down.

The sushi was okay, acceptable for an all-you-care-to-eat buffet. It just seemed like there was usually too much rice as compared to the remainder of the rolls, which made it very filling. I tried several varieties and came to this conclusion for all of them. The fish atop the few nigiri I tried was so paper-thin you probably could have seen right through it if you took it off the top! But again, I understand that they can't just give away the house.

My main issue with the place was the rest of the food. It just wasn't that good, and seemed of very low-quality. I tried some appetizers such as crab rangoon, dumplings, and pork buns. These were just barely okay on the whole, but still much better than the several different types of entrees I tried. Those, as a whole, were largely bland and consisted of what seemed like poor quality ingredients. Some were just lukewarm, too. Even the chicken skewers I had were dry and leathery. The hot and sour soup I had was also very bland and disappointing, which was a real let-down because I love hot and sour soup.

My dining companion did eat a healthy portion of the fried chicken they had and said it was very good. It looked good, too, so perhaps I should have eaten that instead. But the whole point is, I didn't come to The Journey to eat fried chicken!

In short, there was nothing I ate there that made me say, "Wow! That was really good! I'm going to get more on my next trip!" Nothing even close! Did I eat my fill? Yes, and then some. Can I complain for the price? Not really, but I do think my money would be better spent getting something made-to-order at a non-buffet Chinese restaurant. The only reason I gave 3 stars is that I do realize it is a buffet and did not expect it to be of the absolute highest quality. Otherwise it would have gotten a 2.

With that said, I would still be open to giving them another shot if someone wanted to go really bad. I didn't try everything, so I would definitely make sure to try some different things. I do know what I didn't like, so that is a plus. It would probably have to be dinner, I would gladly pay the higher dinner rate if I thought that it would make it more enjoyable. And if it seems like I am striking out again, well I guess there is always that...

Well, I tried this place about a year and a half ago, and wasn't very impressed. There was nothing I found to eat that was even average. The sushi was probably the best thing I had, and even store bought from Woodman's or Metcalfe's is better. Regardless, I gave them 3 stars because there was a big variety and the price was very low. I also said I would give them another shot at some point because there were many things I didn't try. Well, since it took me almost a year and a half to do this, you can tell that I wasn't that eager to return. I finally did in the recent past. It was basically the same experience. The host and waitress were nice, so I think they are trying to up their game. But the food was just, overall, about a 1.5 or 2 at most. Again, it seemed the sushi was the best solid food item (2.5), but it was still not as good as the store bought I sometimes buy. The hot and sour soup was much better than last time, but still about average (3 compared with about 1.5 before). I probably enjoyed the hot and sour soup more than anything else, but I need more than just that. Of special note were the fried "scallops". I love scallops, but I don't even believe that these were real scallops. They definitely were out of a food service bag, and whatever food service company provides them should be run out of business. I swear, I would rather eat school cafeteria fish sticks than those things. Thankfully I only took 2 because after taking a bite of the first one, I didn't want to finish it. I tried to finish it, and actually almost had to run to the bathroom to vomit because it just didn't taste or feel right. I managed to cope and ditched the other one under a napkin. I really don't see how anybody could like the food here. Sure there is a lot and it's cheap, but I really couldn't enjoy eating most of it on both of my visits. I wish I could say great things about this place and frequent it, but the food is so bad that I can't. I still wanted to give them 3 stars, but after thinking about it for a couple days, I have to settle with a 2 because I don't ever plan on returning regardless of...