Galaxy Hot Pot and Sushi 📍 Deerfield — Restaurant in Riverwoods

Beware: $40 automatic gratuity and $16 taxes added without them telling you. They charged me $17 because my 5 year old special needs child was sitting with us at the table for 20 minutes until her dad picked her up. She did not order anything but she drank a cup of water while we waited… $253 later I asked the manager if they charged me for my child because she was sitting with me and waiting? No one could explain why I was charged $253. when I asked again why I was charged extra and told them that she didn’t order any food and we told the hostess that she was leaving when we first arrived, the manager offered me a $10 gift card to come back….. i declined the gift card several times and tried to leave the restaurant but he started following me out of the restaurant. so I took the card and gave it away just so we could be allowed to leave. This is the first time I have been here and I will not be returning. Make sure you do your research before coming here because if you don’t finish all of your food there is an extra fee of $10 per person. Save your money and go somewhere else.

** In regards to your response, Galaxy Sushi and Hot Pot, I told the waitress upon arrival that my daughter would not be staying and that we were a party of 5 only. I also told that to our sever. My receipt does not show a break down it just says party of 6 - $179 and then the $17 additional charge for a child along with the automatic 18% gratuity and taxes. Your own policy states that 18% gratuity is added on parties larger than 5 so even though I told multiple employees we would only be a party of 5 and my daughter’s father was on his way to pick her up, and she did not order anything, you took that as an opportunity to round our party up to 6 and charge me the additional gratuity and taxes without informing me of your policy or that you were doing so. When I explained the situation to the manager he even asked me if I informed the hostess that she was leaving and I said yes. If there was nothing wrong done on your part then why wasn’t I allowed to leave without taking the $10 gift card? Why was I held up at the door and apologized to and asked to come back again and again? Thanks for your response but I hope you take a look at the way you conduct your business and change it to better serve...

I came here to leave a good review and then I read some of the bad reviews and ... hmmm.

First, I can't imagine the sushi is worthwhile, we didn't see anyone eating any last night, it's clearly not a focus. But the hot pot was tasty and good value at $30 AYCE. Happy to have this nearby. We sat at the counter and each got our own pot, one with the original which has an asian peppercorn note and is definitely a little spicy 🌶️ (at least for this laowai), the other the mushroom broth which is fine, just a basic soup. You can make your own sauce combinations and we really flavored up the stuff we made with combos of soy, vinegar, hoisin, oyster sauce, yakiniku sauce, etc. The vegetables are good variety and fresh, certainly these are not inexpensive items and we had multiple kinds of mushrooms, bamboo, bok choy etc.

Nobody should be expecting "fresh" protein in a place like this - even if you go to an Asian market, you'll get pre-sliced frozen hotpot meats. We had the two kinds of beef, lamb, scallops, quail eggs, and two kinds of dumplings (chicken and shrimp har gow). The har gow was really good in the mushroom broth. The lamb was solid. The scallops are small but have some flavor, and the quail eggs were fine.

I noticed in one of the other reviews a comment about stomach distress and one of us did experience a little bit of that the next day. So, I think I would just be cautious to make sure everything cooks fully.

The menu shows rice is available but I guess you have to ask for it? I noticed the rice steamer later, I would have liked some vs cooking my own noodles, some of the noodle varieties are almost too thin for hotpot.

The service was fantastic and attentive, they also were really helpful at describing the different soups,...

I would like to start this review by shouting out my amazing waitress Angie, she was amazing and was by far the most attentive and polite server I came across in the restaurant. Onto the food, I had issues with my miso soup, the first bowl I got was barely warm and tasted almost purely of vinegar and the seaweed was still completely dehydrated. Angie did replace my bowl and the second one was hot and the seaweed issue was fixed but it still tasted of vinegar. I was not able to eat either of them unfortunately.

I got my nigiri the salmon nigiri was small and the fish was not super flavorful, the salmon’s texture was great though. The eel nigiri was small and pretty unremarkable and the shrimp was great the shrimp was perfectly cooked.

The rainbow roll was a little disappointing because the fish was thin but over all it was a decent roll, the cucumber was proportional to the rest of the filling which I appreciated. The same could not be said about the dragon roll. The cucumber ratio was ridiculous 95% cucumber and 5% eel. Lastly the angry roll which was the best roll, proportional and flavorful, I wished I’d order a second one of these instead of the dragon roll because it was by far the best and is what I would recommend.

Angie was very attentive and was on top of things. She deserves a promotion or something because she was hustling!

I didn’t try the hotpot but that seemed to be the most popular thing so if you like hotpot and sushi maybe choose to center your meal on the hot pot

Almost all the special rolls have cream cheese which is an interesting choice. As someone who doesn’t like cream cheese in their rolls this limited my options Overall I do not think I would come back here which is a shame because it has a...