Flat Top Stir-Fry Grill

This is a nice alternative to Mongolian BBQ. It’s the same but different! I like that they bring you the cooked food to your table. I also liked the lettuce wraps. This restaurant easily accomidated my Medical Weight Loss Clinic diet requirements. However, I had trouble understanding why I had to pay $ 3 more for supper than I did for lunch, for the exact same food & service?

Eh. My meal ended up bland. Seeing as I picked my meal piece by piece, that’s largely my fault. But I didn’t have a chance to arrange a great set of ingredients. And that is Flat Top’s fault. So were a few other small things that added up to a less than «I need to go back! And now!» experience.
I went with a group. We had a reservation and were seated immediately. That was great. The tables had little recipe cheat sheets to look at BEFORE you went up, and those were exciting. Look, I could make my own Pad Thai or Chicken Lettuce Wraps. But you leave the card at your table when you go up, and it’s too much to remember. Couldn’t you just bring the card with you, you ask? Not really. You need both hands, and there’s no time to pull out the cheat sheet to check as you’re being moved through a line and can only go through once. Plus the cheat sheet does not list ingredients in the same order as they appear in the food choosing area, which – as you’ll read in just a moment – makes it near impossible to create a specific dish.
And that’s the main problem for me. At a place like BD Mongo’s, you can walk around the food stations and plan out your meal. You can start at one end, go to the middle go back to the beginning, flip to the end, pop back to the middle. You can stroll around carefully arranging for 15 minutes to make sure it’s just right. At Flat Top, you go from one end to the other, you cannot really go back unless there is zero line (there was a constant line while we were there). So you just pick at random and hope you’ve made something cohesive. Positive note: lots of options for vegetarians for meat substitutes. Negative note: if you want starches, you ahve to put them in your bowl, which takes up space; they also put the starches at the start, so your bowl is half-​full before you get to the good stuff.
Then you do the sauce. Someone is serving the sauce (served buffet style), so you have to choose quickly to not bother this person by trying a few to see what you want.
Then you do meat. Notice that the meat and sauce aren’t combined. This means the meat ends up decently bland.
Through a system that is more complicated than it has to be, you have to quickly choose what you want on the side. Positive note: They have sides like roti (delicious!) and lettuce wraps. Negative note: The lettuce wraps were a mixed bag. I got two tiny pieces of lettuce and one GIANT piece of lettuce.
Then you put down your bowls and your sticks and you wait. The food is brought to your table kind of at the same time, kind of not. And like I started by saying, mine was bland. Perhaps I should have known to put on more sauce (I did «just» two ladles). Perhaps I should have added some more spices. I just couldn’t think because I was being pushed through this line. And if I’d gotten out of it to give myself time to think, I would have lost my place with my group and my food would have come out 20 minutes after. So there was an odd amount of pressure during the meal selection.
Their music is also playing really loudly. All pop.
The service was totally fine.

I enjoy coming to this restaurant. There is hardly ever a wait to get a table and service is good. Unlike Mongolian BBQ, I love that you don’t have to wait around at the grill for your food. Roti is always a plus!
However, I do not like the layout of the area where you create the stir fry. There is just one line (You can’t go on both sides of the buffet). The sauces are very hard to reach and you end up getting a sauce that’s got other sauces dropped in it because people couldn’t reach. Meat selection is very limited– beef, pork, chicken, calamari, and fish.
Don’t forget to bring your student ID as they have student discount.

YOU create the stir-​fry, so don’t complain about the taste here… That being said, have the people who give this place 5-​stars ever been to a real restaurant?
In all fairness to my 8-​year old, this is probably the only place to which she would award 5-​stars. It does have its advantages, such as kids eat free on certain nights, college girls with eating disorders can have total control over what goes into the bowl, it is slightly superior to McDonalds considering the nutrition aspect, and the roti bread is pretty tasty.
The negatives are that I still have to cook though I’m at a restaurant, their vegetable prep work can be pretty substandard, waiting in line when I should be sitting and drinking is absurd (both for the restaurant and myself), and there tends to be food flung in every direction which ends up on the floor.
I could not help but think that if I owned an authentic full service stir-​fry restaurant this place would drive me insane! Think about it — you have come from some far-​flung asian country to Ann Arbor and started your family restaurant. You have your grandmother’s recipes that have been handed down to you, but the idiots in this town only want to go to that ridiculous place where they make their own food.

In short this is BD Mongolian BBQ where you don’t have to wait and watch some Bro cook your food. You can get your food with rice, noodles, wraped in lettuce or bread, and most interestingly made into soup or a sweet and sour soup.
Flat Top has went through some evolution after some of these reviews were posted. You now just get one black bowl to put your food in then can pick up another small bowl to add more meat.
They also no longer have an annoying employee at the sauce counter making your anxious about what sauce you pick for your food.
One major point is this place is much more vegetarian /​vegan friendly then Mongos. They have 5 different types of veggie proteins including quorn, seitan, and tofu. They clearly mark what sauces are vegan and the manager has been super veggie friendly when answering questions. Making your food into both soups (including the sweet & sour which my wife is addicted too) is vegan along with the Roti bread. Mu Shu wraps are vegetarian but not vegan. The company has a great webpage labeling every allergy and ingredient.
I wanted to give this 3 stars but after going into all the vegan options they deserve 5 stars BUT there wait staff is really bad. Slow and inattentive. They also for some reason only have one person cooking the stirfry and it can take for ever. If you want more then one trip do not go during a lunch or dinner rush.
Protip — you can currently get B1G1 free coupon on the back of Hillers register receipt.

My roommate and I came here for the first time, and we were enormously impressed. In essence, this is like Mongolian BBQ, but with a few differences.
Comparatively speaking, Mongo has far better drink specials, and the bowls for loading up ingredients are bigger; also, rice is served separately, rather than at Flat Top where the rice takes up room in the ingredients bowl.
That said, Flat Top has a wonderful array of vegetables and sauces, as well as MANY vegetarian and vegan protein options — seitan, tofu, tempeh, etc. As a vegan, that was encouraging. For omnivores, they also have a full spread of meat options. They provide chopsticks at the table, and srirachi is available upon request. And, most importantly, the roti is exactly as amazing as all of these reviews suggest. Get it, and you’ll be glad you did.
The service was good, and my meal was excellent. My roommate said much the same. All in all, Mongo is a better way to spend a night (drink of the day specials are 4 bucks, if I recall correctly) but I was far more impressed with the meal at Flat Top. Needless to say, I will be visiting again.

My friend and I decided to try Flat Top after shopping in Ann Arbor for a gift. I hadn’t been there before, but enjoy stir-​fry, so I was excited to give a new place (new to me) a shot.
I really wish we had picked a different restaurant because we experience multiple issues.
First, our waitress asks what we’d like to drink, sends us up to get started on our meals, and never gives us our drinks (not water, nothing), which seemed odd. She kept staring at our table, even after we had sat back down, after we had put together our bowls. Finally, after sitting there for about fifteen minutes, she brings us our drinks as if no time has passed at all. (The place was not very busy.)
Second, our food was very bland! I was very taken aback. We used the suggestions from the lady working near the sauces, and were expecting something more flavorful than cardboard.
Third, my friend (who has a seafood allergy), used the white stick (which means that she has an allergy and her bowl cooked separately), but apparently that meant nothing because she still found items that she hadn’t selected in her bowl. Her food also arrived nearly ten minutes before mine did, which is fine, but they weren’t that busy, and should’ve been able to better time both of our meals to be done around the same time.
But, the thing that topped off the evening was when I found hair in my food. It wasn’t mine (it was black, mine is red), and I had had maybe three bites of my meal. The waitress was apologetic (it wasn’t her fault!), and the manager offered to personally cook me a new bowl, which was appreciated, but I declined. I already had hair in my food once and wasn’t prepared to try to get over that by remaking a new bowl.
I’m not sad to say I won’t be dining there again. I was prepared for a delicious stir-​fried meal, but instead left after losing my appetite because someone can’t wear a hairnet.

Sometimes I hate Ann Arbor. Per capita it is full of more hipster douchebags and wannabes than I care to deal with. We came here on a night they seemed to reign. Wrecked the experience for sure. Worse than children I tell you for sheer annoyance factor.
Other than that it was fairly typical Mongolian BBQ. Weirdness about sauces though, I cannot wrap my head around *doing shots* of varying sauces to determine what you want on a stir fry. Really? Well that is what the staff encourages. My husband was half nauseous before he even took a bite.
The food is fine as long as you can manage to hit the right combo of flavors for yourself. If not, sucks to be you. I did better than James but he still seemed to be ok after the bizarre overdosing of odd sauce choices suggested by the weird staff member. He was just ok with the place overall, not thrilled.
I liked it more but I know the magic of salty/​sweet/​sour and can combine flavors more successfully. A punch of spicy and a hint of bitter and yum. I am not aching to return but I would not be too sad if I ended up back here on a different night with a different crowd.

This is definitely the best Mongolian style barbecue restaurants in Southeast Michigan. The vegetables are so fresh and they have meat alternatives you can’t find at ANY other restaurant.
I am not a super huge fan of this style of restaurant, but this is probably as good as it gets for its category.
I love that I can make my stir fry into a soup with either vegetable soup or hot & sour soup. Depending on your sauce choice, this can make it absolutely delicious. The roti bread is REALLY good, too.
I have been wanting to try their breakfast, but unfortunately I never think of Flat Top when the occasion arises.

Real good food — in fact, great for adults, but not a real great place for kids as you have to manage them while trying to pick out your stuff.
Tip — if you have kids, get a table on the side which is so much more quiet and less stimulating.
It’s like traditional mongolean bbq — pick your fresh veggies, meat, and sauces, then add some sticks to add breads and eggs — they charge extra for shrimp though:(. You put your name and table on a stick too, so you can set it and forget it. They bring your food to you so go back to your table, sit down, and have a beer while your meal is cooked.
They ran out of broccoli when I was there, which is pretty much all my boy eats (hard to believe, but he is a broccoli freak). All other veggies were fresh and plentiful.
We got our food pretty quick, but I saw other tables that arrived late having to wait a pretty long time to get their food and they seemed more than a little pissed.
Bathrooms were clean and stocked.
I like this place and will definitely be back with the wife and friends — leaving the kids home even though they eat free there (4 yrs. old age limit).
I am craving this place as I write this review even though we had it last night, so what more needs to be said!

Hey! For its kind… this place is good, ok? We got a coupon downtown AA from a Ninja (yeah, you read that right!) and we decided to try it out tonight.
Staff was very nice, our server was genuinely friendly and very helpful. For vegetarians/​vegans there are quite a few meatless choices of protein which I was really excited to try. I was impressed. Really. They had mushroom «meat» (quorn), seitan, non-​gmo vegetable tempeh, and non-​gmo curry pakora. I also had a glass of Malbec with my dinner, not the best but it went well with my food.
The place is clean. They offer b-​fast, lunch, and dinner for pretty good prices. It’s a pretty «safe» place, if you screw up your meal is your fault, not theirs… they just mixed up what you chose. But seriously, if you want to socialize, feel like getting some fairly healthy food and not in the mood for cooking this can be your place. Good location, too.

Went out for lunch with friends yesterday — a nice, casual place to do so. Similar to BD’s Mongolian, but you leave your bowl of food with them and sit back down while they cook. I much prefer that over standing in line with soy sauce dripping down my arm — gave us more time to chat.
Speaking of sauce, I did appreciate the «somolier» giving suggestions. It was hilarious watching him try to shake up a concoction in those stupid little paper cups!
Next time I’ll try the «turn it into a soup» option with extra noodles.
I tend to be a conservative rater, so my three stars means it was as good as I’d expected, and an average experience.
Only real critique was that the restroom is apparently one-​at-​a-​time. At least, the door was locked and I never got in.

Flat Top Grill would have probably received a 3-​star review from me the first time I ate here for one major reason: the staff would not leave me alone. I enjoyed my meal, I thought the food was easily one step above Mongolian Barbecue (which I’ve grown to hate), but that damn waiter checked in with us about 30 times. Look dude, I like my food… I’m not lying! It was fine and all but I didn’t see myself coming back any time soon.
My second visit was for breakfast and that was where the genius of this place hit me. Make your own omelets seems like a simple concept, but they just did it right. The ingredients were fresh, the staff was unobtrusive and had good timing, and the environment was exactly what I was looking for. The Sunday morning omelet/​pancake bar was an easy winner for me, my dad liked it, my wife liked it, my friends liked it and even my 1-​year old son had a good time.
I still might have some issues with my first dinner visit, but as a breakfast place, I’m going 4 stars all the way.

I think 3 – 4 stars is appropriate here, as I found this place to be much better than Mongo’s, which is more of a 2 – 3.
Flat Top has a great selection of spices and sauces for your food, and they’ll let you try any of them first, as well as recommending sauces and mixes for you. They also give you as much of this fried bread stuff as you want, which is incredible and really the main reason to go.
I also didn’t get any gross, grisly meat like I always do at Mongo’s. And you can get your mixture turned into a soup, but I wasn’t adventurous enough for all that. The all you can eat option is a little pricey, and honestly even the heartiest of eaters can probably do with just one bowl, but who doesn’t like variety? And if you try hard enough, you can make the all you can eat worth it.

Unilocalers… was I missing something? I noticed majority of folks gave Flat Top Grill 4 or 5 stars… can you tell me why??? After internal battle, I had to settle with 2 stars…
All you can eat for $ 14.99, if you have student ID, it’s little cheaper… for $ 12.99, you can settle for single bowl. The concept is same as Mongolian BBQ, the only difference, you leave the food at the counter with the cook and the waiter/​waitress will bring the finished product to you.
On this day, it was busy, but we were able to get a table as soon as we got there. The first time we went up, the whole process took about 15 minute (from the time we built our bowl to the time we got our food). The second time we went up, the line was long… and I mean long… all the way to the restroom area… the whole process — waiting in line and getting our food — 30 minutes.
I was disappointed with Sirloin… the color of the beef was brown… anyone noticed this? The quality of the beef… well… it was meat, but couldn’t tell if it was beef or not… the vegetales that I added in my bowl was not fully cooked. I feel like the cooks make sure the meat gets cooked, then send the food to the customer… and since you pour the sauce in the larger bowl with vegetables and rice/​noodles, the meat never get’s infused with the sauce… even after being cooked on the flat top.
Overall, I don’t know if I’ll go back… the quality of the meat is still on my mind… For others, you have to judge the establishment yourself… Oh, if you go with the unlimited and decide to take the leftover home, they will charge you $ 4.59… be warned.

So my bottom line right off the top: I like BD’s Mongolian Grill a bit better. They have slightly different ingredients but they’re basically the same concept. Mongolian has more protein choices, FTG has some unique veggies, they both have bunches of sauces but they have different selections. I’m a died in the wool Paleo eater, so I’d prefer the larger protein choices at Mongo to the foo-​foo veggification at FTG. Both are decent places but FTG would come in second in a «build your own stir fry» smackdown competition.
Some specifics about our FTG experience: They are really good about food allergies. My wife was able to easily avoid gluten and have her food cooked in a separate wok with separate utensils to avoid cross-​contamination. And they even got her fresh chicken and beef that wasn’t marinated in glutenacious stuff — nice. The folks at the «buffet» line were very good at helping you find tasty and healthy ingredients. The servers were friendly, helpful, and reasonably timely.
The main negative was that my wife’s separately cooked food was brought to our table well after the rest of our food. At least 10 minutes late, and probably closer to 15. So 3 of us were munching on our food while it was hot while my wife was left to wait patiently. Made for an awkward and uncomfortable dining experience.
The atmosphere was fine. Things were clean (as you would expect from a brand-​spankin new restaurant). Like a doofus, I dropped the little red bowl that holds the proteins when I didn’t set my bowl caddy thingie on the buffet line properly. The staff was very apologetic (even though it was totally my fault) and were quick to bring out a fresh new bowl. Nice.
The place is on the expensive side. We paid $ 52 before tax/​tip for 2 adults and 2 kids for dinner. Not terrible but a bit higher than we expected.
So I’m torn for a rating. I don’t think 4 stars is appropriate because of the long delay for our food and the modest protein choices. But 3 stars seems a bit harsh — the food was fairly tasty and the place was nice. Since I can’t do 3.5 I’ll bump em up to 4 and trust that they’ll work out their service/​timing issues. Don’t let me down FTG!

I was snooping through Heather G’s reviews (the best way to find some gems is to semi-​stalk Unilocal friends of friends, so sue me!), and I noticed she’d recently reviewed FTG. And she’d been local?! Woo hoo! I’ve done FTG in Champaign, IL while traveling for work, and loved it, but despaired of ever having one in Michigan.
This is a Mongolian stirfry place amped a bit. More exciting veg choices — bok choy, fresh green beans. Five non-​meat protein choices — I particularly liked the wheat and mushroom options. A plethora of tasty sauce choices WITH tasting cups (missing at BDs). Small meat choice, but everything looked very fresh. Two noodles — Chinese (similar to spaghetti) and Thai rice stick, and two rices — white and brown.
After putting together your bowl you bring it to the ‘stick area’, where you definitely want to add a blue swizzle stick (= roti, a fried pancake-​like piece of bread that is addictive). You can also add a stick for shrimp (costs $), or a stick to make your stirfry a vegetable or hot and sour soup. They also have sticks for lettuce wraps, moo shu style, or if you have food allergies.
My favorite is the vegetable soup option. I’ve put together about five ladles of sauce that work for me — spicy, salty and savory — Vietnamese soy, FTG sauce, spicy chili sauce, Asian sauce and Black Bean sauce. Once these 5 ladles are added to the soup, I think it’s perfection.
We went for lunch on Thursday 12÷30÷10. Got there at 11am so pretty empty, but packed when we left at 12:30pm. $ 9 for one time lunch or $ 10 for unlimited. No salad bar or soup included. They serve some interesting appetizers (the wings at the table next to us looked good), alcoholic drinks and desserts. Also serve breakfast on the weekend.

I am here almost once every week. really good food, lot of options, meat, pretty and energetic waitresses (I don’t see them often these days but they are so entertaining and they create a nice ambience.)
Less expensive compared to Mangolian BBQ n more options.
discount for students

First time to a Flat Top Grill, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Went at 4 PM, so the place wasn’t too busy, but there were still quite a few people there. The waitress explained how the system worked (quite easy — fill a bowl with veggies and sauce, add meat, and leave it for them to stir fry. The one issue is that they can only stir fry about 15 meals at once, so make sure everyone in your group gets their meal in together, otherwise some will be done and you’ll have to wait 15 minutes for the rest (made that mistake). Other than that, the food was fantastic, and taking the advice of other reviewers, I ordered the roti and was not disappointed. As long as you pile your bowl high when picking veggies and meat, you will get quite a bit of food for the money! We didn’t try any appetizers, but they looked good as they were served to others. Will definitely go back again!
Update: this has become one of my favorite casual dinner places. It’s easy to put together a healthy meal, and creating your own stir fry is a lot of fun. The people who work behind the sauce bar are very helpful — they will mix several sauces and let you taste until you find something you like. Hint: if you find a combination you love, you might want to write it down — I never remember!

Having been to the Flat Tops in Illinois, I decided to make a trip to the newly opened Flat Top in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is brand spanking new and really beautiful. It is also quite busy.
This is a do-​it-​yourself stir fry place. At dinner time, you can choose a one bowl meal, or an unlimited bowl for $ 2 more. You start at one end of the «salad bar» and choose your starch (rice or noodles) and then whatever vegetables you want (sometimes they have unique ones). You put all of this in the big bowl. Sauces come next. There are tons to choose from — and you can have tastes to decide… I have my favorite, so I won’t comment as everyone likes different combinations (they will help you if you need assistance as well).
Then, you choose your protein (fish, meat, poultry, tofu) — you put this in a little bowl which is attached to the big bowl. Finally, there are the sticks. I HIGHLY recommend the blue stick (roti bread!!!) I repeat — I HIGHTLY recommend this. try to stick 2 sticks in and see if you can convince them to give you multiple pieces (sometimes works in IL, usually not… but no harm in trying). They will give you a second piece of you ask. The other into a soup), moo shu, etc. You can also put spices, peanuts, on this.
Then, return to your seat to wait for your food. You can have a fun cocktail, wine, soda, beer, etc.
The food arrives — and ENJOY!
sticks are for shrimp (extra charge), eggs, soup (they make your food
This restaurant is new as mentioned, and there are a lot of people to help you get the most out of your dining experience. Everyone is eager to please. At times, I feel that the ones in Chicago are not helpful at all. This restaurant seems to be a hit in Ann Arbor. Definitely try it.
p. s. They do have a breakfast at most locations, but I’ve never tried it.