Sushi Express

I feel like the term «American Japanese food» needs to be a thing the same way that «American Chinese food» applies to Chinese takeout restaurants. It’s disingenuous to lump traditionalist Japanese sushi restaurants with the Americanized sushi places that serve specialty rolls that have cream cheese and spicy mayo. Sushi Express definitely falls in the category of «American Japanese food». I unthinkingly ordered a sashimi plate, and only afterwards did I realize my mistake. You don’t come to Sushi Express to get fantastically delicious slices of sashimi from fish caught earlier that day. You come here to enjoy fancy specialty rolls that are hefty and smothered with sauces like spicy mayo or eel sauce. Don’t make the mistake I did and hope for sushi that you might get in Tokyo. Come here for the fried sushi rolls, because this is America.

This was a pleasant surprise. For the prices that they charged, I expected the sushi to be just awful.
It really wasn’t. Is it as good as Wasabi, Murimoto, or Red Sushi? No, not at all. (And none of those places are particularly fantastic to begin with.) But it’s really, really cheap, is delivered quickly, and totally does the trick.

Just don’t.
I love sushi and therefore, as any proper foodie, have an ongoing ranking of my favorite spots in the city. On a whim, however, I left my comfort zone and decided to give Sushi Express a try, since a friend once told me it was surprisingly good. I no longer trust her opinion on japanese fare.
Let me begin that I ordered from
— it’s super convenient, and you earn reward points. After an hour and 23 minutes (I wish I was exaggerating that) without the order showing up at my office, I called the joint to see what was up since the delivery wait extended past the 45 to 60 mins promise. First, I am told by the girl answering the phone that they do not have an order from an hour and a half ago; I explained that I ordered off Eatstreet and I had a confirmation number in addition to the pending charge on my debit statement. She then yells to another employee, then tells me it was delivered. The gentleman who took over the phone call from that point was extremely polite and provided excellent customer service, but that is the extent of my praise. He explained that it was accidentally delivered to the fourth floor of my building (even though I had entered the office number on the order slip… I checked to be sure this was not a mistake on my part due to the fact that I HATE complaining to restaurants. I’ve worked in the industry, and in no way to I seek out to make someone’s day miserable). He did offer to drive back, retrieve it from the fourth floor, and deliver it to my floor but I insisted that was unnecessary, I would just run down to grab it; he even went so far as to offer me my money back if I was not satisfied. I’m not.
Once I picked up my order from the fourth floor it was cold, but honestly that doesn’t matter much to me with sushi, and it’s not a problem to reheat crab rangoon. The sushi was mediocre AT BEST. Subpar, is actually how I would describe it. The flavor leaves much to be desired, the «crabmeat» was a joke and they were rolled terribly and just kept falling apart when I tried picking them up; it literally looked like a sushi salad of brown sauce, sushi cucumber and deep fried batter. I’ve had better crab rangoon from a freezer bag, as well, but that is not where I expect a sushi place to shine.
All in all; I should have taken the offer to reimburse me, then used that money to go to literally any other of the MANY, many sushi places Madison is home to and ordered a roll that was worth it. Skip this place.

I was a little skeptical ordering because of the reviews I saw when I first looked this place up. After eating here though I was honestly pleased with the quality of food that they served.
I haven’t tried the sushi yet so I can’t testify for that but if I were you I’d go with the teriyaki here. The chicken is lean and high quality and it’s pretty reasonably priced as well. Their delivery doesn’t have a 20 $ minimum and their charge for the service isn’t overly large. This is my go to for delivery for sure.
So yeah, this place definitely has my thumbs up as far as I’m concerned.

I had never heard anything about this place beforehand and was visiting from out of town (Ohio), so I believe I came in unbiased and fairly neutral. My group of 8 walked into Sushi Express and noticed immediately that this was a small establishment. The restaurant probably seats 20 at most, and there was only one 4-​top table open when we arrived. However, our server was very accommodating, quickly helped the parties who were beginning to leave, cleaned up their tables, and managed to seat us all within maybe 5 minutes of waiting, which I highly appreciate!
My friends suggested I try one of the bento boxes to maximize value. I ordered the short rib bento box, and for less than $ 11 I received short ribs, fried rice, a salad, and a 4-​piece California Roll. I definitely agree that I got my money’s worth of food! I ended up with enough leftovers for a second meal! The short ribs were fantastic, the salad and fried rice were average, and the California Roll was so-​so but I wasn’t expecting it to be great in the first place. Some people in my party got their specialty rolls, which did taste a lot better! Everyone in party was satisfied with what they ordered.
Overall, I was highly satisfied with my dining experience at Sushi Express. Would I return if I ever found myself in the area again? Most likely no, because there are so many other restaurants around I also want to try. However, if I were a UW student, I definitely could see myself swinging by every one or two weeks to get a bento box or some sushi!

Sushi Express is, as the name implies my friends have told me, a place for express sushi and value items. It lives up to this namesake. Sushi was prepared swiftly and in a nice, presentable fashion. My friends native to the Madison scene suggested to get the value bento boxes.
My order consisted of Salmon sashimi, a Lake City roll, and a Fire Cracker roll. The sashimi arrived within five to seven minutes of my table of 8’s order. It came in a pleasant presentable boat plate with ginger, wasabi, and lettuce. Soon after, my rolls arrived with a generous amount of eel, spicy mayo, and wasabi mayo sauce. Waiting just a few minutes more for my friend’s bento boxes to arrive, I took a sashimi piece in stride. I was left more than underwhelmed by its frozen meat. Working at a sushi restaurant myself, I wasn’t disgusted by the practice but left disappointed that it was like biting into an ice cream bar. For almost the entirety of the meal, I ate through the rolls hoping my salmon would defrost. The rolls itself were well made and satisfactory. For such an express place, Sushi Express put out fairly good quality rolls! It was slightly difficult to dip my rolls into the soy sauce dishes — they were wide and narrow, only scratching the surface area of each piece dipped. The shrimp tempura in each roll was large and plentiful. The fish topped along was not frozen however, so it was an enjoyable experience on behalf of the rolls.
The service was better than expected for an express restaurant! The waitress was patient with our party. If you’re looking for a quick bite of sushi around Madison, definitely check this place out! Additionally, the bento box values are pretty nice a la my party’s decision! Worth trying out next time I’m by as well. Would I return? Probably. Not for the sashimi though.

Very fair deal; in fact, probably the best night time deal I have seen for sushi in Madison that is not all-​you-​can-​eat. I got the any-​3-​roll deal for something under ten bucks; unsure if this deal continues. All three were presentable in a to-​go box I picked up one sad, rainy day. All rolls had raw fish in them. I did not get sick or taste fishiness from any of the rolls. They were somewhat heavy on rice that seemed to be sitting for a bit; still better than grocery store sushi. The inside of the restaurant was decent for what seemed a predominantly to-​go location; staff was friendly.

Food was delicious. The value of the bento box was such a value meal. I wish we had one in MN. I got the beef ribs teriyaki bento box. ¹⁰⁄₁₀

My friends judge me because of how much I enjoy eating here. It’s seriously one of the best deals in Madison in my opinion.
Their bento boxes are huge and easily enough food to split between two people or have as two meals. I also really like their sushi deals. You can get 2 or 3 rolls off a set list for pretty cheap. These rolls are pretty standard (tuna, spicy salmon, California, eel and avocado, etc) but if you have a craving for sushi it still does the trick and 3 is more than enough to fill you up. They also have some specialty rolls that cost a bit more but aren’t too bad either.
When eating here, it’s definitely a matter of quantity over quality, but honestly for cheap sushi in Madison the quality isn’t bad and I would definitely recommend Sushi Express.

While Madison, being a relatively small city, does not have much of a sushi scene, I will say that sushi express is definitely one of the better sushi restaurants on campus. Their food is relatively well priced, the combinations in the sushi recipes are great, and they have good delivery service. I had an eel sushi roll and a hot girl roll while my friend ordered the eel sushi and out of this world roll. Both were great, with an adequate amount of fish. All sushis that we ordered had a good fish to rice ratio that didn’t make me feel like I was only eating rice. Great location too for the campus.

Cheap sushi that tastes pretty decent. Recommend if you want something quick and cheap.

Do you like warm sushi? I don’t. My husband believes this place is better at lunch, but I was not especially impressed.

Want fast yummy sushi for delivery? ORDER HERE! Yummy sushi rolled well and handled with care over delivery. If you want an amazing addition, try their crab ragoons, you won’t be disappointed. So far, Sushi Express has been the fastest sushi delivery in Madison (and I live Downtown).

My cousin, a UW grad, took us here when we went to visit. Looks like a dicey sushi place but it was pretty happening on Saturday night after exams and graduation have ended.
I can see why, they have a discounted price if you buy two or three of the regular rolls. Then they have an extensive special roll list. And the portions are pretty filling.
The beef teriyaki comes with rice and isn’t what I expected it to be (the usual piece of beef, sliced, grilled and sauced).
If I lived there, went to school there, I think I would definitely visit again. It wasn’t the best sushi I’ve ever had, nor the cheapest. But it was definitely a nice spot to get my sushi fix.

I was craving for a ramen bowl and just suddenly turn right to find it there but nope, they don’t do ramen but stir fried udon. So I gave it a try. At the first glance, I totally knew this is not the real udon I usually have. But the second thought poped up to my mind and I told myself it’s probably like a Japanese/​Chinese fast foods bcoz of its name, sushi express, so I should not expect anything but just try and see if my dish is flavorful. Even though the dish didn’t look right but the taste was quite good. Plus having yr noodle on the windiw seat was just perfect but I wanna complain about lousy noisy Chinese staffs that they just ruined my peaceful moment. Otherwise it was just good.

I gave this restaurant a pretty awful review over a year ago, but I’ve since really taken to this place. Their delivery time has definitely improved. The 2 or 3 roll combos are a great deal. It’s not the best quality, but it satisfies my sushi craving without requiring me to change out of my sweatpants. A few times that I had the eel, there were little bones in it, so I avoid eel from this restaurant.
I recommend spicy tuna, spicy California, and Philadelphia rolls. I’ve never been disappointed with these three. The rock shrimp is delicious, and the fried oreos were pretty good too (kind of soggy, but tasty).

We ordered the Eel Avocado Roll, Shrimp Tempura Roll, and Dragon Roll and they were perhaps the worst quality I’ve had in Madison – I’m debating between this place and the sushi place run by Hispanics in Fitchburg for worst sushi. Not only were the ingredients old, each of the rolls’ main ingredients were almost non-​existent (e.g. there was so little eel and shrimp that we couldn’t really taste them) and the eel sauce smelled of soy sauce (yes, unagi sauce contains soy sauce, but it’s not supposed to *smell* like it). There was something sour in our fruitless rolls, too, which made me wonder if something hadn’t been kept around too long and gone bad…
As my mom always said, «If you want Phở, don’t go to a Thai restaurant,» and if you want good sushi, don’t go to a Chinese place.
If you’re looking for some less expensive, but quality rolls, try Ginza’s Happy Hour. The prices are comparable and the rolls taste soooo much better there.
In fact, if you take the one-​evening sushi-​making class from Flambé Gourmet, you can learn to make better tasting, less expensive sushi than Sushi Express.

Okay, when you’re paying less than 10 dollars for two traditional rolls, you can’t expect top shelf seafood so please, lower your expectations fast.
That being said, Sushi Express is generously priced and the rolls are amazing considering the price.
I’ve had a pleasant experience eating in and ordering carry out from Sushi Express. I know some people have mentioned poor delivery services so maybe instead of having it delivered, pick it up yourself the next time you have a hankering for super cheap sushi.

Old rice in the rolls — gummy
Old wasabi — dried and turning pale
Old ginger — white?
Raw fish — not bad, seemed fresh
Overall — I think the low price comes from bulk prep of items that won’t kill you if they’re old and refrigerated, and fresh prep of those that will… good for a stoney meal, not good if you’re trying to impress with your knowledge of the local «good» sushi joint.

I was actually astonished at how yummy my sushi was from Sushi Express. I ordered their 3 roll combo delivered to my apartment last night and it got here within 45 minutes. The cold rolls were still cold and my warm roll was warm, impressive!
I had the spicy tuna roll, which is really good. They put crispy tempura bits into it which really gave it something extra. The Philadelphia roll was also yummy. One of my all time favorites will always be the shrimp tempura roll, and this one did not disappoint. I loved it so much I almost ordered some again the next day! Really, really good food and really, really cheap!