RED Dine Lounge

Reviews 5

MA

Ma Jo

My friend took me out tonight for dinner to this place and I was exited! I rarely have time to go out! It was our first time at this restaurant, still early evening around 6 pm. and not too busy. The hostess took us to a table for two right next to another couple. With many two seat tables available all around and two more right next to us, my friend asked if we could possibly sit at one of the other tables for two. The hostess told us they expected a four people reservation right next to us and on the other side more reservations were expected, so in short, the answer was "no". It seemed like a brush off. Five minutes later, she seated two people right next to us. Mmmmhhh?! where are the four? Half an hour later, all the other tables still empty. Throughout our visit, we were feeling rushed to get done. Once we finished our meal and declined dessert or coffee the check was on the table quite fast. I felt rather like a cattle cow guided to get going and free the table. Not a very inviting atmosphere despite the generous interior to exude style and a delightful eating experience. Although the food we got was good, I am a sushi lover, it did seem quite pricy for the obviously big, but loosely prepared rolls that would be a challenge to anyone new to eating sushi with chop sticks (thinking of beginners) I am not sure anyone working here would be willing to lend a hand if there was such a person. This is my impression! In addition an order of sushi (usually offered as a two piece per order) cost double as much as an order in other local sushi restaurants, e.g. Maguro sushi here $8 or $10 for two, depending what type of the two tunas offered vs. $4/4.50 somewhere else. Granted it looks bigger, again it is less tightly packed rice, which easily falls apart. The service was professional on all ends, but lacked some human simple interaction quality. Less "fufu", meaning to appear like a class act big city restaurant, but more quality in servicing guests, would make a greater impression on me! At this point, I have no interest to recommend this place, for service, the food or the cost of it. I recommend go to a restaurant where you feel comfortable, welcomed and get some food to remember!

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VI

Vikas Parmar

Worst Experience for any restaurant Ive been to in Madison, WI!!! Ive lived here for nearly 5 years now. My father (coming from home in NYC) and I had our dinner and 1 drink of yamazaki 12 year each. Everything was fine until we got the check. $40 EACH for one two-ounce scotch. Never in our scotch drinking lives have my father and I paid that much for one drink (even in NYC)! For a reference, we both knew Yamazaki 12 year BOTTLE (750ml) costs $130. However for a single (not even a double) pour for two here cost $80! This was purely ridiculous. And that is fine. For a restaurant, if you want to charge $40 a drink thats all dandy. BUT TELL YOUR CUSTOMERS THAT! They NIETHER communicated this price to us nor had it written down anywhere on the menu. And if you are severely inflating the price of a drink, you HAVE to tell your customers. The female manager comes by and does apologize. She says she will take out 1 of the drinks from check, waitress brings a new check and they just took out 1 ounce ($19)! We brought this up again, "I thought you guys were taking out 1 drink?" The waitress was like "I thought she meant to take out 1 drink ($40) too" A Male manager then comes out and essentially argues with us as to why they upcharge due to allocation, etc. And essentially provides no good reason as to why they do not communicate this upcharge and price to customers and thus riles us up to the point where we literally just want to leave this establishment and nothing else. We paid whatever they charged and left. I literally live in the apartment complex 20 ft away and I will never come back. Nor would I ever recommend this place to friends or family.

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KO

Konrad Hermann

NEW LOCATION: Terrible Service but great food. My wife and I decided to go out for a special dinner to celebrate after I got a raise. We had gone to RED before for a birthday and loved it, so it was an abvious choice. We arrived on a Friday night and were told it was a hour wait....no big deal for a friday. We were seated at 7:30pm and didnt see out server until 7:50pm....we just sat at the table waiting for the server that would "be with us shortly". We ordered drinks and our first two rolls. Now the waiting game really began. Between 7:50 and 8:30 we never saw our server again. Then she showed up at the table to tell us she had put in our order wrong and our rolls were comming up. Did she comp our rolls or drinks as an apology for the mistake? NOPE! So our first two rolls come out at about 8:45pm. We enjoy them and the food reminded us why we were there. Being a special night we decided to, foolishly, order another 2 rolls at about 9pm. These two rolls take till 9:40pm to appear. Again something about a kitchen mix up and a muttered apology for the delay. We enjoy the rolls and pay the bill at 10:10pm having seen our server maybe 5 times and having spent over 2hrs in the restaurant waiting for 4 rolls and 2 drinks. BOTTOM LINE: at the price point Red is at, the service CANNOT be that terrble. RED needs to hire more sushi chefs and servers to match the scale of thier new location. RED has fallen from a very high pedestal in my book, and my wife and I WILL NOT BE RETURNING. There are plenty of restaurants with better service to spend $110 on in Madison.

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A

A Private User

There is no great sushi in Madison so lets get that straight right off the bat. That being said Red & Takumi are the best Madison has to offer. Moved here from NYC and have been on a sushi quest ever since. The top three are Takumi, Red Sushi, and Muramoto. Takara is way down the list for me. Takumi has best selection (Jalapeno Hamachi is really good reminds me of Nobus similar offering), Muramoto is over priced and doesnt have a great selection ( were sold out of toro on a friday afternoon said they get it in at beginning of week and sells out fast. What are they gonna do on a busy weekend?), Red sushi is just as good as Takumi (again they have Yellow Tail sashimi with Jalapeno which all sushi places stole from Nobu but thats ok cause I love it.) Prices are the same Just depends if your downtown (Red Sushi) or on east side (Takumi) both are good options.

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N

N Chen

I usually only write negative reviews on Google but I loved my last visit at RED and have to write a 5-star review. Ive been to Tokyo many times but always struggle to find a sushi restaurant that matches authentic Japanese sushi in the US. RED tastes authentic. The price is a bargain too. You pay less than $10 for a roll during lunch time and its not a crappy roll like California roll. The waiters are friendly and know their stuff. The place has modern furnituring that is pleasing to the eyes, not some cheap wooden "Asian style" furnituring (No offense. I am Asian.) That was the impression from my first visit. I will 100% visit again.

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