Lotus

The sushi is great; some of the best that we have had. Prices are high, except for the Monday-​Tuesday specials.

Their Oak Creek roll is SOOO good. Main reason I go there. I have also had hibachi there which is also good.

Lotus serves a variety of Chinese food, along with sushi, pad thai, and other popular Asian dishes. The service is fast and friendly and they serve their tea in a variety of charming cast iron and stoneware teapots. (Usually a nice oolong tea, not the watery green tea you get at some places.) There is usually calm instrumental music playing and I’ve even had them alter a dish for me to make it vegetarian. (It was delicious, and man, there are not a lot of places to really eat as a vegetarian in the South Milwaukee/​Oak Creek area.) I go there pretty regularly for a calm, quiet dining experience. Try the Yu Shang Eggplant with Tofu; it’s my fave!

Décor and staff are nice but sushi is way over priced and mediocre. There are much better places to go to and worth the drive a little further away.

so I should have gotten my sushi at the gas station instead. Half off «special»? 18 pieces filled up the little tray. At full price this is $ 32??? I had to control myself not to throw a fit. Never again. Wasn’t very fresh either. Bummer

Sorry to say it, as we received a gift certificate from friends, but it was not good at all (except for the yellowtail roll). We ordered several things. Bulgogi was horrible — not even close in flavor and covered in onions. 75%onions, 10% other veggies, 15% beef. Hibachi lobster and steak — SO bland and dry. Pad Thai was decent until I found a shaving of metal in it. Not good. All leftovers were disposed of. Disappointed.

I love the golden garlic dungeoness crab. Not alot of chinese places are able to make it. Service was great

This is my go to sushi place on the south side. It’s convenient — near the Kohl’s and Target on Howell Ave. in Oak Creek. In my opinion, it also has some of the best spicy tuna rolls and spicy salmon rolls in Milwaukee. My absolute favorite is the Valentine Roll! Of course, anything topped with spicy crab can’t possibly be bad, but I drool just thinking about this roll. The staff at Lotus also are great! They always remember me and ask about my son. I give Lotus 4 stars instead of 5 only because the non-​sushi food isn’t my favorite. But, who cares, because the sushi rocks!

Disturbingly awful. Decided on a whim to grab sushi locally instead of driving to Milwaukee & ended up here. Was promptly seated & ordered a water. My sister’s glass had a fortune paper floating in it! As we made light hearted jokes about her fortune water, our appetizers came: house salad & wonton soup. House salad was ok but watery. Wonton soup had little dumplings that can best be described as mystery meat. This is the point where we became concerned about our impending 5 roll order of sushi. It was terrible. Our yellow tail had a particular odor & many of the other rolls were chewy & stringy. The table behind us also found shell pieces in their shrimp tempura. Very poor quality & service. Please shut this place down!

I used to come here all the time with a co-​worker a couple years ago and I remember really enjoying it. When I came here this time, it was not what I remember it being.
The restaurant was clean and the service was okay (obviously a language barrier between us and the waitress). The food came pretty quickly and it was average in terms of taste /​quality. If I am in the area and want sushi, I would consider coming here again but I am not going to drive here from home when there are a couple of other places that are closer to me that I could go to if I wanted sushi.

We love this place! Great sushi! I like the dragon roll and I get it every time we go. They have a great special on Mondays and Tuesdays, half off rolls!

Lunch buffet is not worth the trip, much less the price they charge. Tried it twice in case the first time was a fluke. Both times at least half the selections were empty. The dishes that had food in them were pretty dried out and lacked flavor.
We did try the place for sushi another time and that was ok; nothing special.

I was hungry and on a whim stopped in. First bad sign 8pm on a Saturday night and only two cars in the parking lot. Next I stood for 5 minutes and no one even acknowledged me. I took a seat for another 5 minutes the sushi chef saw me but I never saw a hostess or a waitress. I saw one girl frantically cleaning and closing down sections. They close at 10pm, still two more full hours of service. After 10 minutes and not even a nod from an employee I left. I don’t know what the good tastes like, I never got a seat.

We live nearby and have dined here a few dozen times (including takeout orders).
Never had bad service, and they are always very accommodating.
One time I had an «Oak Creek Roll» that tasted questionable so I opted not to eat the rest of it. They noticed and asked why, I politely just said I probably wasn’t as hungry as I thought (not wanting to be rude and say it tasted off). They took it off my bill without asking or even implying that was necessary.
On another occasion (likely because we frequent that place), they gave us a $ 50 voucher to bring our kids in for Hibachi. Probably best to not expect that when you dine there the first time, but it goes to show you how they really do care about the experience and want to make it as best as possible always.
For Sushi in the Midwest, it doesn’t get much better.
BTW — highly recommend the Oak Creek Roll — I get it every time. Wife loves the dynamite roll (which isn’t on the menu, but they will make it for you (and explain what it is) if you order it.

I ate one before the photo but I couldn’t resist! The atmosphere wasn’t loud or busy. They have 2 hibachi tables with a fun server. He also made my sushi. I had the Geisha Roll which had fried scallops, avocado, & eel. YUM!!!

We stopped on a whim when we were looking for a new adventure in food. We knew this place had sushi but weren’t really sure what else they had — but we didn’t care, it’s fun to try new places. When we walked in we were greeted by a friendly hostess who seated us. The restaurant looked like any traditional Japanese, Chinese, Hibachi, sushi bar. Wow! That’s quite a variety.
We sat at a quaint little table for two that had a cute wall separating other diners from us made out of bamboo. Very creative. I could have done without the fake plants that were weaved in-​between that bamboo wall. A note to restaurant owners — if you have fake plants throughout your restaurant, it would be a great thing if you would dust off the leaves of such plants ever so often.
I thought for sure my husband would get some sashimi but once he saw volcano chicken on the menu he was all over that. It’s one of his favorite dishes. I ordered the Kung Pao Chicken. Volcano chicken is made with deep fried chicken breasts over a bed of cabbage, carrots, and peapods and generally served on a sizzling plate. The waitress brings my husband’s plate out and sets it on the table on the other side of the cute bamboo screen and gets our attention. She then gets out the kind of lighter used to light candles and sets his dinner on fire. I was really worried about the dust bunnies on the plants starting a small brush fire. She then sticks her face close to his plate and blows the fire out. I could feel myself gagging just a little as she blew all over his food.
When she brought his plate around to our side of the bamboo wall, on inspection you could immediately see that that batter on the chicken was gooey and undercooked. The chicken looked awful — I think they covered it up with tons of tin foil in order to hid how bad it looked. My plate was delivered and it was the size of a large pizza just loaded with canned vegetables and tiny little chunks of chicken floating in some dark sauce. Actually tons of dark sauce. There was some rice floating in all that goo also. It did not taste like any Kung Pao I’ve ever had. There was no spice, just brown goo. It was awful.
I would not recommend this restaurant.

It’s always horrible here. Two visits — two disappointments.
Had to come a second time because that is where my coworkers told me we had to go for a colleagues last day at work.
The sushi was mostly rice and panko inside. I didn’t taste a lot of fish.
At least one of my pieces I had to spit out because it had a mouthful of what felt like 20 little silicone beads in it! I guess it was a bunch of grains of uncooked or dried out rice and it was very nasty to bite into. Not sure how many more were that way because I stopped eating!
At this eatery you pick a miso soup OR a salad for the lunch special (some places give you both) and the salad is SO SMALL!!! Much smaller than I’ve ever seen anywhere else!
It’s just not good.

My family and I travel out here once or twice a year to visit an elderly relative who loves sushi. We have never particularly liked the food at the lotus, but since it’s the only place in the immediate area that serves sushi we always get her take-​out from here. However, after our last experience we will NEVER be returning EVER again.
We arrived at the lotus at 11:15am on a saturday and tried the door but it was locked. The hours posted outside claimed that the restaurant opened at 11am on saturdays, so we tried the door again. Still locked. We peered in the door and noticed a young woman folding napkins and a young man walking around who appeared to be making repairs. Both clearly made eye contact with us several times but made no move to unlock the door.
Thinking that perhaps they had changed their opening time and not changed the hours on the sign outside, I called them. I heard the phone ring inside, then the young woman picked up the phone and answered:
«Hello, this is the lotus.»
«Hi, what time do you guys open today?»
«We open at 11am. We’re open right now.»
«Right now?»
«Yes. Right now.»
We peered in one more time. She walked right past the door, making eye contact with all of us, and disappeared into the back. We tried the door one last time. Still locked. So we walked away.

Not a huge fan of the 3 or 4 Chinese dishes I’ve had from here, however. I feel obligated to leave a good review for their Sushi. I’ve had 3 good Sushi/​Sashimi meals here in a row. I tend to order a variety of sushi, and maybe a roll. The fish has always tasted and smelled very fresh, vibrant, and the color /​texture is always right on par with properly handled sushi grade fish. The seaweed used in the rolls is dark green, is never rubbery or fishy smelling/​tasting, and a couple times while I was waiting I was served a complimentary Spicy Octopus «salade» that was PHENOMENAL (I’ve even begged them to put it on the menu). I’ve eaten Sushi across Milwaukee, and around the country, and for a landlocked, midwest, reasonabily priced Sushi bar in Wisconsin… Lotus can hold their own.
Sushi as a cuisine is an artform, and freshness and quality are two things that have a hard time evading this style of food, so bad sushi sticks out like a rotten tuna. The line is fine, and in my opinion, Lotus stays far far above the line, and for this I highly recommend a stop.
FYI: At the time of this review, Monday and Tuesday are 50% off Sushi & Sashimi from a limited menu which to me is like having my Sushi, and eating it too!
and for the cheeseball finish…
! (Transliation: Let’s Eat!)

Lotus is okay for sushi and Chinese. You can’t go wrong with the standard Chinese fare, but on Mother’s Day we took mom here and there were two sushi Special rolls listed on the blackboard that caught my eye: Kika Roll and Angel Roll.
The Kika, with mango looked really promising, but the (new) Angel Roll won out!
The Angel has asparagus, tuna, avocado, topped with crunch, tuna and salmon and a few kinds of colorful sauce. It was pretty good.
Oh, I forgot to mention we ordered crab rangoon to start, and their homemade sweet and sour sauce smelled like old feet! We didn’t even realize what it was until we requested some sweet n’ sour sauce and our server motioned to the container. It didn’t look (or smell) anything like sweet ‘n’ sour sauce I’ve tasted. I was afraid to even put it to my lips it smelled so funky.
Atmosphere is just okay– Monday and Tuesday are half price sushi night and I’ll be sure to get my mom over her sushi phobia before the summer’s out!