VIP

Love the traditional Chinese food but the sushi lacked. A simple salmon roll was $ 10.

I’ve been meaning to write a review of VIP since we went there for my birthday in March.
First, I love sushi though I’m hardly an expert. I ordered two of the «fancier» rolls although I can’t recall which ones and they did not disappoint. Everyone at our table enjoyed what they ordered.
Now for the reason I wanted to take the time to submit a review — the service was very slow that night. It was a Saturday and I believe we went at 5:30pm. People at nearby tables arrived after us and left before us. The four of us were running out of conversation and more than ready for our food when it arrived nearly two hours later. The staff apologized and informed us they had a large party they were serving. Then the unheard of happened — they showed up with four desserts on the house for us! We were shocked, usually you can consider yourself fortunate just to get a «sorry». We happily dug into our desserts and since it was four of us dining out, we did enjoy each other’s company so all was forgiven.
I will definitely be back but if it is just hubby and I, hopefully we hit it at the right time as we no longer have the patience for a two hour dinner and free dessert might not make up for it.

Terrible service.
Two people serve the whole restaurant, and if you complaint about how they keep ignoring you, they would just tell you to eat somewhere else.

VIP was one of favorite restaurants of my family for a while. I was excited to hear that they started AYCE on Sundays. As soon as I found out AYCE, I went there with my family 5÷22÷16. I was even worried about if the place was packed with so may people.
When we arrived around 12:15, the place was almost empty and very tired and bored looking server took our drink orders and the first order. Even my son said the server looked angry.
I was really confused from my previous experiences at VIP, the servers at the place had been very friendly, nice and even fast.
When I do the first order I was so surprised I can order only 3 items at one time. That means I can order only 6 piece of sushi or sashimi and wait. We waited for more than 10 minutes and no food came out. I did not want to spend a couple of hours to eat several pieces of sushi and sashimi.
We left the place. They still charged all drinks.
Even when we leave they did not care.
Now I am so glad that I left VIP at the moment even though I paid for all the drinks barely touched. That saved my Sunday. Because of VIP, we just found another nice place in Madison.

This is a underrated restaurant. The inside is very new and very cool (no windows really, led lighting along the top, and a wonderful waterfall that sets the ambiance) They have monday-​wednesday specials where you can get many cheap rolls of sushi for $ 2 – 4! They also have many specials including a sushi roll called «Lady Gaga», delicious! They also have beautiful entrees that everyone seemed to be enjoying. Highly recommend!

It’s unfortunate when policy overshadows the cooking. VIP is a classic example of when the chefs deliver fresh and delicious dishes but management interferes so greatly that it taints the entire experience.
I had the pleasure to experience the Sunday all you can eat sushi and the dishes I had the opportunity to enjoy were lovely. I wish I could end my review at that.
The restaurant has a policy that only allows patrons to order three dishes (sushi or non-​sushi) at a time. But you cannot incrementally order as you finish a dish – all three must be finished before you are allowed to place another order. This policy forces diners to either eat quickly in order to sample the other items or choose a trio that offers variety at a piecemeal cadence.
This policy in theory is fine, it gives the kitchen breathing room. Fine. Except it takes 20 or more minutes for your next order to be brought to the table. 20 minutes. Regardless if you ordered a seaweed salad or a dragon roll. This is not an exaggeration by any means. There’s a common theme among several of the reviews here and you’ve been forewarned.
To be fair, 20 minutes doesn’t sound bad when you’re waiting for a large 3-​topping pizza but it’s excruciatingly long in between orders of small plates. You know what I mean.
And again, if you choose to linger with your initial order and dine casually you cannot order any more food until every morsel has been consumed. Such is the policy. But the kicker is, there is ANOTHER policy that diners will be charged for any uneaten items. Totally fair and I personally hate a wasteful society so I can dig it. But the logic of restricting orders on the front end but then also penalizing diners on the back end is asinine. VIP’s management at its finest.
And, if you happen to bring in a coupon for $ 5 off your meal, don’t expect to use it on Sunday because it’s the one day of the week where no coupons are accepted – which is obviously clearly marked on the coupon, right? Wrong. There are no date exclusions or exceptions on the coupon. Diners are made aware of this shabby policy on the bottom of a sandwich board by the hostess stand – the natural place for any promotional disclaimer, of course. Duh.
And the cherry on top, don’t ask to see a manager because the manager is only on premise Friday and Saturday from 4−7pm. Totally normal. My bad for thinking a manager would ever be working beyond those critical weekend dining windows.
It’s a learning experience at VIP!

VIP is our go-​to Asian restaurant. The food is always on-​point and the price is right. You can order from three different, well-​rounded menus: the Japanese menu, the Chinese menu, or the real Chinese menu.
The Japanese menu has great sushi options. We have tried almost everything and have never been disappointed. Order what looks good to you! The seaweed salad is always a nice, fresh accompaniment to the meal. We have tried a few other appetizers – tempura crab, scallop salad – but usually just stick with the seaweed salad and a bunch of sushi. All you can eat sushi on Sundays is dangerous!
The Chinese menu has everything you’d expect like General Tso’s, sweet and sour chicken, etc. We have had the hand-​pulled noodle soup and west lake soup. Both good! The west lake soup is massive, so order with a group or plan to have leftovers.
And finally, the best-​kept secret in Madison is their real Chinese menu, which is only written in Chinese. You can ask your server to translate. Everything on it is authentic, so be ready for bone-​in meats and tons of flavor. I’d recommend the hot pot and pork belly, which are the only things I’ve tried from this menu. But the steamed DIY buns look delicious, so I’ll be back to try those. This is definitely a menu to try with a group. It’s like taking a trip to China!

the all you can eat option for sushi is a horrible experience. Three orders a time and need to wait for half a hour for another three orders. The flavor is extremely terrible. Avoid at all cost

I’ve been coming here for a while, I have tried many of the entrees with tofu and both the japanese and chinese menu.
Appetizers
Age Tofu ⁴⁄₅ — Nice soft tofu squares.
Seaweed Salad ⁵⁄₅ — I really like this. I will sometimes get it as an appetizer with a unique taste.
Favorite Sushi is the Avocado Roll. Sushi isn’t great to me being a vegetarian but that’s the case everywhere.
Sze-​Chuan Green Bean Curd w/​chili oil ⁵⁄₅ — I’m a fan of this. I’ve never had it anywhere else before but I like the taste/​spiciness level.
Favorite Entrée
Kung Pao Sauce w/​Tofu.
My only complaint about most every entrée is they lack a real hit of spice despite the little red pepper next to it on the menu. This is a problem at most places for me is they are «too safe» on spice or they don’t kick it up much.
Service
Very attentive and clean restaurant. Sometimes lacks bathroom amenities including soap or toilet paper-​beware!
Bonus Points
The beer and alcohol prices during happy hour is amazing! I love having a $ 2 IPA with my meal!
Beer $ 2.00
House Wine $ 3.00
Flaved Sake $ 3.00
Mai Tai
Blue Hawaiian
$ 5.00

Service really is a hit or miss here. Is it as bad as some reviewers say? Yes. It’s also just as good… well the food is. I like the hand pull noodles and soba noodles. The chinese appetizers are good too but skip on the spring roll (which are pretty much egg rolls). The spring rolls are crispy and filled with veggies, noodles, and little meat. My wife likes the specialty sushi and the sashimi is good too. Its not the best sushi in town but its good.
I recommend the all you can eat sushi on sunday so you can try a variety of japanese food. Theres a separate menu with rules to follow. Look for the seperate sushi menu in the photo section.
This place shines because of the cool glass front doors, nice interior, awesome bathrooms and the optional good chinese and japanese food. «Try out your luck» or not.

What a relief! A sushi place that has wooden chop sticks and hard table tops, rather than white table clothes waiting to get destroyed by fallen soy sauce and fried rice.
Definitely judge the exterior before entering, it only makes the interior all the better, that is once you find the hidden entrance.
Backstreet Boys and sushi seems so wrong, but it feels so right.

Came here for the all-​you-​can-​eat sushi Sunday.
The restaurant is beautiful. Food is ok. They make great special rolls, and I liked the spider, dragon and crunchy rolls the best. However, not as good for the regular rolls or sashimi or maki.
Now here’s the huge complaint about their service.
After we got a table and had our water. I asked if I could exchange for another plate, because there were so many broken edges on my plate. The waitress told us that there’s no need to change because every plate is like that. And to our amazement, wow every plate is really as what she said.
After we placed our order, we waited 30 minutes to get our appetizer and other food. You can’t order until you finish all your food, totally reasonable to avoid wasting food, but does it really take that long? We tried again a couple times, after we ordered, it does take 30 minutes for the next round of food.
At last, not to mention, there’s an already added 18% tip on the bill, while none of us actually wanted to leave a tip.
Not coming back again!!!

Great sushi for the price and their All You Can Eat sushi on Sundays is an awesome deal. Their AYCE menu isn’t just restricted to sushi but to appetizers (gyoza, shumai, edamame), salads, soups, and noodles as well.
FAIR WARNING: It says it on the AYCE menu but not everyone reads the non-​food text, so please be aware that you cannot waste food or leave pieces of your order or else it will be charged as an ala carte. They limit it to 3 orders before you can get more to avoid this, but that doesn’t mean you SHOULD get 3 items at once, especially if you know you get full easily. You can always order more. This should be common sense but a lot of people are used to buffets where you can waste so much food and not have to pay for it.
The décor and ambience is nice, and it’s a great spot to go with your friends. I took off one star because service was excruciatingly slow on the Sunday we went, waiting close to 20 – 25 minutes per AYCE order my SO and I put in.
Also, please don’t use your chopsticks as drumsticks because frankly it’s rude and loud with everyone in quite close proximity of each other.

Been here a bunch for sushi and have also ordered takeout. I would probably give the Chinese food a 3 and sushi a 3 ½.
The take out Chinese food has been just ok. Everything seems overly spicy. But its not awful, I guess I just haven’t found something I’m super excited about.
We have also gone for sushi for there half off sushi special. There spicy tuna and vegetable tempura were OK, I’ve had better but for the price not bad. The prices are really good for their regular rolls and simpler rolls. They do have discounts on their special rolls, a couple dollars off and those are pretty good. I husband likes getting beer with his sushi. I’ve tried their drinks a few times but they’ve always been on the sweeter side for me.
VIP has a nicer ambiance than you find at other places on the westside for sushi. If you dont want to drive downtown for fancier sushi then VIP might be for you.

Probably the best spicy yellowtail roll I have had in Madison. And for only $ 5.95, a steal!
Their sushi rolls are top notch, and right in line (if not a little cheaper) price-​wise with the Muramoto’s of the world. Great, fast service, cool ambiance, this place definitely has a lot going for it.
The first time we came here we ordered the kung pao chicken and it was the best I have had in Madison. Crispy, spicy, tender… it was overall fantastic. Went here again last weekend and ordered it, and was very disappointed. Either they changed their recipe or we got the wrong dish one of the two times. This time it came with a lot more vegetables, non-​crispy chicken, no hint of spice. It was like they ordered it from Chang Jiang and put it on a plate to serve to us. This is the only reason they don’t get 5 stars from me. The sushi is fantastic, menu is huge, but I can’t give it 5 stars given the odd experience with the Kung Pao Chicken.
Also to note, they have all-​you-​can-​eat sushi on Sundays for $ 26! Will definitely check that out in the future.

We came here craving sushi and wanting to celebrate the new year. We will definitely be back regardless of the occasion! We were seated immediately arriving at 6 pm on a Friday, and the restaurant was very clean and modern looking. The open floor plan in the middle was really awesome, and the sushi bar was huge! We choose to sit at a booth since it was a date night, but made plans to come back for a basketball game this season at the bar!
Happy hour prices were outstanding…2 $ beer and 3 $ wine from 4:30 to 9:30 is unheard of in this city and it was awesome. There were lots of choices for both sushi or cooked food on the menu. We tried the dragon roll (delicious), spider roll (you say spicy mayo, I say get in my belly!) and the Alaskan roll. All were amazing and the prices were way more reasonable than other sushi joints (I’m looking at you Red) that we were considering. Service was decent and lots of parking. We will for sure be back!

Looking for a new-​to-​me west side place to try when the sushi urge hit last night, I chose VIP due to all the positive Unilocal ratings.
The setting isn’t too impressive from the outside, but they did have festive blue holiday lights edging the eaves and coiled around the entryway columns. The peaceful blue lighting continues inside, in recessed fixtures that give the whole place a restful glow. There are interesting uses of color-​changing lights throughout, and a wall-​waterfall and koi pond with very friendly, inquisitive fish. I’m going to assume that they were just happy to see me, and not swimming over just to see if I had food for them. ;-)
I happened to arrive during their Monday-​Wednesday sushi special pricing, so I was pleasantly surprised to see so many offerings of basic rolls at $ 3 – 4 each on the menu. The special rolls are also priced lower. I ordered the rainbow roll and one spicy tuna roll, and miso soup. I like to have tea with sushi, especially on a cold winter night, so I inquired about the ‘flower tea’ — which flower? Jasmine? No. My very sweet waitress attempted to describe what the flower looks like, but that didn’t shed much light on the topic. I ordered it anyway, and it was delightful. Almost clear in color, with a light floral sweetness. It was served at the perfect temperature, which allowed the delicate bouquet to blossom. I complimented the waitress on the tea and she knowledgeably described it as being the Chinese way to serve tea at a temperature meant to be cooling to the body when served with foods considered warming, such as many ingredients typically found in sushi. Loved it, and I’m guessing it was peony… maybe? It’s a mystery. The tea is accompanied by a little bowl of rock sugar.
The miso soup was similar perfection, in temperature, flavor, just right.
On to the sushi. When it arrived, I was a bit taken aback at the spare appearance of it. There are no decorative sauces, garnishes, not much flourish or flair to the presentation. You get sushi, plus a small dab of wasabi and a small amount of ginger. The ginger is not the pink-​dyed kind, which is nice. I’m not sure if the very basic appearance is typical of regular dinner priced rolls or not, but I will definitely go back and find out next time.
The $ 9 rainbow roll was absolutely fresh and delicious. Every ingredient stood out with great flavor. The pieces are smaller than I would typically expect from a special roll, but that kind of worked for me, as they were easier to eat in one bite. Sadly, the $ 3.50 or so spicy tuna roll was a complete waste of $ 3.50. It seemed to have been made so far in advance that everything had melded into a single gummy texture. The spicy tuna was processed basically to the point of being a paste, and the only other ingredient was what I would describe as scraped off breading from deep fried shrimp. I would recommend skipping the ultra cheap menu items for this reason.
The service was timely, warm and polite, very pleasant, and though I never got my requested water, the tea was so light and refreshing that I didn’t really need it.
Four stars instead of five because of that unfortunate tuna roll. But I still think VIP is an excellent value with a very enjoyable atmosphere. I’m very much looking forward to my next visit.

So this four star review is a mix of a whole bunch of feelings.
1) Originally, I saw that this place was a Chinese Japanese fusion. Okay, I usually have a minor grudge against places like this. NOT ALL OF ASIA IS THE SAME. But they have definitely won me over! Their clear delineation between Chinese menus and Japanese menus soothes my little-​bit-​too-​sensitive-​half-​Asian soul.
2) The fish is pretty good. I was not super impressed by the love boat. IT’S NOT IN A BOAT, and the roll was reallllyy okay. But the fish is fresh, and when I got sashimi once… nomnomnom it was delicious! I would give 3 stars I think for the sushi.
3) However… five stars for the Chinese!
Their duck handpulled noodles are amazing. Seriously. The noodles are excellently done and chewy in just the right way.
The star of the show though… Apparently they have a «super secret» (not really secret, but kind of in that they don’t give it to white looking folks) Chinese menu that is actually in Chinese, and that is where all of the real stuff is. Luckily, I creeped on another table and saw they have hot pot… yaaaasss. The waitress was super nice and explained the options to me since I can’t read Chinese and helped me order the hot pot (single person portions only!). I got lamb and beef raw on the side so we could cook it to the doneness we wanted. And I’ve officially fallen in love with this place. My friend who I came with said that it was literally everything she’s ever thought was missing from Chinese food. It was perfectly spicy and savory, the meat was delicious, and the glass noodles in it were perfect. Not overdone!
My new craving.

Favorite sushi in Madison!
With a great amount of seating and rarely a wait, this hidden gem is the perfect go-​to no matter what night of the week.
Monday-​Wednesday they have incredible sushi specials (Philly for $ 3.75, California for $ 3.25, etc.) Thursday-​Sunday treat yourself to $ 2 beers and $ 3 house wines! With extensive Chinese and Japanese menus, there’s sure to be something for everyone.
The atmosphere feels similar to a modern lounge/​nightclub with dark mood lighting and booth seating – great for a night out or even a weekday lunch!
The food is always fresh and delicious and the servers are extremely kind. Have become a very frequent diner here and will definitely be coming back.

After reading all the positive reviews, my friends and I were so excited to try VIP. I’m convinced we came on an off night, but our experience here was so terrible that I’m unwilling to come again.
I set a reservation for 7:30, and we arrived at 7:25. We weren’t greeted for at least 10 minutes, and the hostess finally told us to sit at the bar until she could get our table ready. Bartenders didn’t acknowledge us, and the hostess forgot about us. Finally, after almost 15 more minutes, I reminded the hostess that we were waiting for our table, and she immediately sat us in the back corner. Granted, this all happened while the restaurant was not very busy and we clearly saw many open tables.
Server did not greet us for another 10 minutes, and she rushed our drink orders. Took us almost half an hour to put our dinner orders in. I got the pulled noodles in a duck broth and spicy salmon roll. Spicy salmon roll was pretty good. Pulled noodles? The worst noodle dish I ever had. All of us had a variation of the noodle dish, and all of our noodles were too soft, fell apart when we tried to eat it, and so «swollen.» I wanted to ask for our checks, but the server never came back. I assumed she was busy (mostly because she was completely nonexistant for our entire meal). We waited for a long time, and when I went out to find her, her and ALL the other servers we’re behind the bar laughing and chatting! I would have forgiven the terrible service if they were busy, but they clearly were not. I was livid.
Nonexistant service, and not very good food. I will admit, I enjoyed the sushi rolls and the plum wine. My boyfriend said his wine tasted like it’d been sitting out. In fact, our soggy noodle dishes tasted like it’d been sitting out too. My friend from Illinois was unimpressed, and we were upset that this is the restaurant we chose to represent Madison’s amazing food scene. I’m unwilling to try this place again any time soon.