Flat Top Stir-Fry Grill

Was a great location, but permanently closed now. :(

Went here today, 07/​01/​2013 and found out this location is officially CLOSED!!!
3 stars for my last meal there a few months ago…

Nice ambience. Nice people !
They have variety of vegetables. They also have different sauces. My fav. are the spicy ones !
Good prices and good food with a good atmosphere.

I’ve been here for both a private party and family dinner out. The food was the same both nights. It’s always fresh and there are a ton of options. It’s a place where you can really please almost anyone, even those with dietary restrictions like vegetarian or gluten free. There was not one thing I ate that I did not like. The staff is knowledgeable and everything was cooked so perfectly even though you think they are throwing it all on one big grill.
Everyone raves about the roti bread.
they offer specials online too, sign up for their email list!
I was surprised they did not have a match to light our birthday candle.

Awesome all you can eat domination.
Following the recipes really helped a lot.
Eaten here so many times I do not even know what to write.
Every time we go it’s a race to see how many bowls we can eat.
Which is why we nick named it fat top.

Great especially if you’re hungry! Definitely stack up those bowls.
Also get the naan. Two if you are hungry. It’s so worth it!

This place had a lot of variety for vegetables and sauces. The only person who can essentially ruin your meal is you. I personally should have put more thought into my sauce because I just mixed every sauce that I liked together which was probably 6 – 7 different kinds. It was still good, but in the future I think I’ll limit myself to maybe 2 – 3 sauces. They also very surprisingly had Filipino sausage in their meats which is called longanisa. I was very pleased with that option since I am Filipino and I don’t see many places that offer Filipino food in Chicago.
This was my first time at a Mongolian BBQ-​esque type of place and I surely did not take advantage of piling my bowl. There was a guy, who almost embarrassingly stacked his bowl and probably got twice the amount of food as I did. At first, I thought «wow, that’s so tacky!» Then I realized we were paying the same price and he got double for the money. I was in awe in will definitely learn from him in the future.
Just a tip: pack your veggies and sauces in, then top it off with your noodles (or rice if you choose),

This place gives you the bang for your buck, if you go for the unlimited servings. Even if you go for the one plate, it still gives you a pretty good bang for your buck.
The best part? they offer student specials — I believe a dollar off!
It’s more or less mongolian-​bbq styled food. You pick up what you want– they stir fry.
A quick tip re: the sauces? Pile it on, and put lots of garlic in. More flavor — happier customer.
The bar looks like a full bar, but the prices looked far from friendly.
As for the staff? superb.

I used to love FTG years and years ago. But stopped going when I felt that quality went down. Our firm did a dinner here over the summer, and I came out of it with the feeling that its a okay place. I probably would never go out of my way to come here, but if I happened to be asked to meet for dinner here, I wouldn’t mind.
As for the food bar itself, I feel that its never feels too clean or that certain things are out every few times I had went there. The sauce options are great and gives you creative amount of options.

I used to come here ALL THE TIME since I work next door at Xsport Fitness. But ever since I started night shifts I’ve been lacking on my visits…
I love this place. The food, kind of like the service (depending on who’s there), but mostly I love how close it is to work!
I miss this place. The only thing I wish they did is recognize their regulars more often because I would come here every day and not once was I given a complimentary meal even though management almost knew me by name and I have never left a tip less than 25% (20% when the service was bad once).
Besides that I would recommend coming here for any occasion and you can play with the taste of your food in many different ways, so give it a shot, you might never even have the same thing twice!
Thumbs up that they constantly have seasonal ingredients for a limited time!

Great little lunch spot down the street from me.
A healthy alternative to most in the area.
What can go wrong here, you make your own stir fry, and can make it however you please, choosing from fresh meats and seafood, to rice/​noodles and always fresh veggies.
Complete with spices and sauce of your liking.
A fan for life.

The hospitality is second to none. The food was fresh, never overcooked and delicious. We really enjoyed the atmosphere and the place was packed!
Get the roti bread — it’s great for scraping your bowl clean at the end. :)

This place is a good deal especially if you have a student discount. You are charged different prices depending on whether you get a single bowl or all you can eat. The vegetables are usually incredibly fresh as well as the sauces. At the same time, the meat looked kinda slimy. I don’t know how long it was sitting out there. The roti bread, as usual, was delicious.
Our server was somewhat non-​existant. He showed up at the beginning but then disappeared. We also were asked if we had a reservation in a half-​empty restaurant when we walked in. Why do restaurants do that? Seriously?

I love their appetizer wrap in roti pratha bread with tofu substituting the meat.
This is one of the better Flat Top Grills as it’s spacious, the food counters are on one side (not middle of the room) and they have various seating options, close to and away from the food counter.
Service was okay, but food was good.

Specifically, this is a good spot to start your night before hitting up Second City. It’s very casual and relaxed. So it makes it a great place to go with a group. You get to be creative and design your own meal. Although, it did confuse me a bit at first because all the options are overwhelming and not being one to waste food, I feared that I wouldn’t like my meal. Not to mention that the menu of options are on the wall so I felt pressured to move fast as standing there staring at the wall would have held up the line.
I did like how the server recognized my concern and basically created his favorite dish for me. It was quite tasty and sadly after that and all of the bread I gorged on, I was too full to go back up for more. I will say that the bread is FABULOUS! I like the Mongolian bbq concept and there are lots of options so it can satisfy the most finicky of eaters. Prices are reasonable and the atmosphere is comfortable. Beer menu isn’t too shabby either. Overall, it’s a good time.

Crap, Matthew S. is trying to catch up to me in reviews (deny it if you will, but I know the truth!) so I need to get back in the game. Hmm… oh I know, I ate at Flat Top last night!
I’ve been here a number of times, and last night’s experience was by itself only a 3. But I’m thinking long term, and long term I’m a fan.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of this place and for some reason this is the first review you’re reading, I’ll tell it quick: it’s a create your own stir fry place. You put rice and/​or noodles if desired, then veggies, tofu, etc. then sauce in a bowl, then «protein» (meat or seafood) if desired in a smaller bowl and leave it for the grillers to cook on the giant grill for you. The results are brought to your table, piping hot.
This isn’t a unique concept, but it’s executed pretty well here. You don’t have to stand around and wait for your food, it’s brought to you (you put a stick with your table number and your name on it in your bowl). You have a lot of options for ingredients and can even do some special stuff like making your creation into a soup, moo shoo rolls or lettuce wraps by adding certain color sticks to your creation.
The servers will get you drinks (and there’s a good selection) and appetizers if you’re impatient (not really needed) and dessert if you have the will power to save room, but otherwise you’re pretty much on your own. If your food tastes bad, it’s probably your fault.
They provide you with a few recipe ideas to get you started, and the wall above the ingredient bar lists all their sauces by category (spicy, sweet, etc.) as well as their pertinent nutritional info so you’re not flying totally blind.
The speed at which you get your food depends a lot on how busy they are, which should be pretty obvious. Though last night our food took longer than usual, based on the crowd (or lack thereof). I was also a bit disappointed with the 2 – 3 sopping wet lettuce leaves they brought me for making lettuce wraps. But everything else was good, and I had a couple (yes I’m a glutton) delicious bowls of stir fry. You can bet I’ll be back here again.
Your move, Matthew S.

Smallest out of all the Flat Top Grill’s I’ve been to. Each location have their own specialty meat. Love the stir fry and how you choose what’s on there.
Also love the fact that the wall lists all the calories your taking in. Definitely try to visit Flat Top Grill every other week or so.
Know your sauces people, I tend to mix about 3 – 5 all the time; and also know your colored sticks =)

I was so disappointed with my experience Friday. First I waited over an hour for a table, even though I was told it was only an 25 – 30 minute wait. I complained to the hostess and told her that the wait was longer than 30 minutes. She apologized for the wait. I asked if we could get a appetizer for free for our inconvenience. She said we could and apologized again.
We were seated approximately 1 hour and 10 mins after we got to the place. My thing is this, if you know that you are overcrowded like this on Friday and Saturday, why not create a patio outside? There is more than enough room out there. And if I’m not mistaken, I think it used to be one out there. There was way to many people waiting, it was ridiculous.
When we were seated, our waiter came and asked for our drink order. We had to call him back because he ran off so fast. I didn’t have a chance to tell him our appetizer. So he came back and we told him. Come to find out he was the only waiter on duty. (he was the bartender too!) Are you serious?! With all these ppl?!
Next there was only 2 people cooking on the grill. The had all the bowls stacked together on the side, again alot of ppl. The had 2 woks on the side. I know they use these to cooked ppl food with allergies but come on. it was crowded as hell. We went up there and put our bowls on the counter but before we even received our 1^st bowl, we went back and did a 2^nd bowl. (btw, they burned my chicken!) By the time we finished our 1^st bowl, we waited 10 minutes and our 2^nd bowl came.
I have had better service at this place. Maybe because they were so crowed. But I was disgusted beyond belief by my experience.

Not too bad! Met up with my friend and her son for lunch last week and had a great time.
I really liked the brown rice option (2 scoops for me!) and the variety of vegetables to incorporate into your dish. Don’t like spice? You can control the level of heat. Broccoli makes you yack? You can skip on that too. My friend chose calamari as her protein, which looked really good. I chose pork to be on the end of my fork. Yum! Also… their peanut sauce was super.
This lunch was very filling. And being reasonably priced I can see why Flat Top has so many followers. Bring. It. On.

Years ago, someone once told me Flat Top wasn’t all that good, so I believed them. I was a fool. A FOOL!
When it comes to stir fry, I have been schooled in the ways of BD’s Mongolian BBQ. That place is awesome. Flat Top is like its little brother.
For $ 15/​dinner or $ 10/​lunch, you get all-​you-​can-​eat stir fry. You select your rice (white or brown), your noodles, your veggies, your sauce and your meat. Hand it off to the stir fry guy and he’ll cook it. The waitress brings it to your table. Fun, easy, delicious. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube of food where every combination is right.
It wasn’t quite as good as BD’s, since they have a wider array of ingredients and many more spices with which to doctor your dish. Plus, it’s way cooler to watch Grill Warriors attack your food with big metal swords. Also, my Flat Top bowls seemed a little… heavy. The sauces should probably be a little more watery so they don’t coagulate like ketchup upon grilling.
So I’m teetering between 3 and 4 stars. But for the amazing value, you get 4 stars, Flat Top. I will be back!