Big Bowl

DO NOT GO HERE IF YOU’RE GLUTEN FREE. Four of my five family members are gluten free (for medical reasons– not because it’s ‘trendy’) Went there for the first time yesterday after noticing that they had an extensive GF menu and being assured that they take precautions.
Upon ordering we had told the server (nicely) that four of the five of us were gluten free and that our entire order was off of the GF menu.
Despite this, WE WERE SERVED TWO NON GLUTEN FREE MEALS (yes, by mistake) When our main course came, my oldest daughter and I dug right in– only to learn after a few minutes that the server brought us someone else’s order and that we all had inadvertently consumed a relatively large amount of gluten– NOT OKAY.
While I understand and appreciate that they made a mistake (and thankfully caught it relatively quickly– as well as comp’d my meal)– that doesn’t help alleviate the massive amount of pain my daughter and I are in, even now, nearly 24 hours later. Yes, I realize that I take a risk every time that we dine out– but we take care to minimize that risk by only trying places that claim to take allergies seriously.
Long story short, don’t go there if you’re GF for health/​medical reasons– or, at least, double and triple check your meal before consuming. Lesson learned, I’ll stick to the 3 – 4 places that we already frequent that take gluten free seriously (such as Wok in the Park in SLP– which is also a much better value). DO NOT RECOMMEND BIG BOWL.

In the grand world of Thai, I’m not an expert. However, I do know a thing or two about flavor.
I’ll save you the long reason I’m there, and how packed we were as a larger group.
Order up the chicken satay because I like eating skewered things (I’m a caveman, I know). The peanut sauce was somewhere between forgettable and «isn’t this supposed to taste kind of like peanuts?» I would have accepted straight peanut butter for this, but, instead, served a runny rendition of peanut sauce that was a total miss.
The chicken pad thai. The only thing I could taste was lemon. Nothing much else. The chicken had almost no flavor, at all. To the point where I wondered what the point of having chicken, or noodles for that matter, was with the lemon sauce stuff. No hint of peppers, no seasoning of anything else, just lemon. Which, for lemonade is good. But, for a chicken dish, not so good.
I also got a chance to dig into my girlfriends orange chicken dish. Rice was cooked well enough, I guess I’ll give it that. The chicken pieces were tiny, hovering on the more breading than chicken side. The orange sauce? Meh. It at least made the terribly flavored batter tolerable to eat.
Lets see… oh yeah, almond cookie sundae dessert. Good, really good. Not enough ice cream, more whipped cream than anything, but, a valiant effort at dessert.
Service was great. We had a big group, and our server did an admirable job keeping us in line and our orders somewhat organized. I’ll give him credit there.
No ambition to stop by again, and never would have if the destination wasn’t predeteremined for me.

I’ve never had a bad experience here. The food is fresh and tasty. Great flavors! The potstickers are good. Chicken phở soup is always a favorite. It’s light and delicious. The pork fried rice that comes with braised pork atop a heaping mound of fried rice is a must try! I recommend reservations.

You guys might want to rethink how you do takeout. It seems very illogical to have 3 people hostesing and only one or two doing takeout when I waited in line for 10min just to get my order. Ridiculous.

Bio: Vegetarian, who loves different cuisines and want to have a good gastronomical experience.
Bored, and want to eat stir fry with lots of vegetables? Head to big bowl. Good taste. Couple of options for vegetarians.
Ambience: Decent, sometimes the place gets crowded.

This has to be the worst chinese and thai restaurant I have ever eaten at — gross and greasy and way overpriced. The ambiance is nice — I give it that, but the food has an odd taste and sweet and flavorless and the vegtables are nasty. Please avoid.

Big Bowl is a wonderful Asian fusion restaurant in an upscale shopping mall — been here many times and always have the Kung Pao chicken with brown rice. Love the charred chili peppers in the dish and my table mates can’t believe I actually eat them, but while a bit chewy, they are delicious. Daughter had the Thai shrimp and scallop stir fry, also 5-​star worthy. Also live the spicy green bean appetizer and house made sangria of the day. Server was a bit scripted in her demeanor but efficient. Overall a great dinner and fun atmosphere. This restaurant is part of Lettuce Entertain You group, and while a chain, seems to maintain its authenticity. Will return… Often.

Healthy and great for all ages. My daughter loves the edamame, chicken satay and potstickers. My husband loves the build your own stir fry– green curry w/​tofu. Something for everyone. Take a stroll around the galleria while you wait.

Probably the worst restuarant we have been till date. we got our main course first and the appetizers10 mins after, when asked the waitress, She said: «thats becoz you ordered everything at once» ohhhh my bad, i dint know they served it that way when ordered at same time!!! i ordered a soup bowl instead got an oil bowl with water in it!!! And by the way, we got food on our table after 40 mins of emptiness! Bravoo to ruin our dinner fellas!!!

Hands down the WORST Thai food I have EVER had!!! No flavor what so ever! I ordered yellow curry, which typically is my favorite and it was flat out flavorless. Even the veggies were nasty! They were over cooked and limp. Do not eat here!!!
My hubby ordered Shrimp Pad Thai and that too was flavorless. It was also served cold! He said it was «blah.»
Save yourself from being disappointed and do not eat here!!!

I prefer hole-​in-​the-​wall, more authentic ethnic restaurants but the food here was pretty decent for a chain. Our group ordered several appetizers: edamame, pot stickers, green beans tempura and the Thai herb fresh calamari. Each appetizer came out hot and ready to eat. Our entrees came out shortly before we finished off the appetizers. I had the Kung Pao Noodle with chicken added. I normally have to ask for extra spice when I order dishes at a chain. My dish packed a surprisingly good amount of heat which made me happy I didn’t ask for more! The dish was very tasty and I would recommend it to anyone who likes noodles, Kung Pao sauce and spice.

Seasonal watermelon sangria! Yum! We have been to this location many times and have never been disappointed. Our server Morgan recognized that we were celebrating a special occasion, and brought us a dessert. She was very attentive and sweet!
The spicy peanut noodles, potstickers, (appetizer) and stir fry bar are a few of our favorites. I love the spicy kung pao but Chinese ginger garlic is great too.

Had high hopes for a good tasting dinner after a long day at work.
I ordered the sesame chicken. It had a ginger taste which turned me off. Nice environment, but food is lacking.

I had the chicken pad thai and it was good. Nothing extra special and a bit pricey for the portions you get. Hibiscus lemonade was awesome!

Called Big Bowl before we went there as v r vegetarians. V specifically told them that v don’t eat any seafood or eggs either. They told us there r several options for us. All the things v wanted to eat had some sort of meat or fish sauce. They gave us only 2 options, one being the Kyun noodles and second being stir fried veggies. So that’s what v ordered. The noodles put my mouth on fire and I can eat some spice being Indian. The stir fry had no sauce or salt. They couldn’t make us fried rice without eggs. The server was rude and in a hurry. Never once apologized. Management never even came up to us to for anything. Will never eat here again and will advocate others, especially vegetarians to avoid this place at all cost. Prefer to stay hungry then eat here.

This was my first time at Big Bowl. I LOVE asian food and was so excited to see that the menu included a variety of cuisines including Chinese and Thai.
As we walked in, we saw that Happy Hour was going on which included some $ 5 cocktails. They offered this Happy Hour special at the bar and on the patio. The patio was closed because of rain and the bar was full so we were not able to get Happy Hour prices. I wish they offered it to us at our table anyway because they didn’t have all of their areas open for the Happy Hour.
We sat down at the table in the main dining area and throughout our meal, the waitress was attentive and the service was great. I ordered the chicken pad thai and my fiancé ordered the panang chicken curry. I was contemplating going to the ‘build your own’ stir fry station but the options were so overwhelming that I decided to stick with the pre-​designed dishes on the menu.
I was very happy with the pad thai. It was flavorful and plentiful. I could not finish it at all. However, I was disappointed with the panang chicken curry. It lacked flavor, especially the coconut and savory flavor that makes the dish. If you get panang curry right, it will blow your mind. It didn’t blow my mind or come close :/​.
Overall, it was an OK dining experience. Service was good, pad thai was good, but the panang was disappointing. The prices were a little on the pricey side but this might be because Big Bowl is located at a high-​end mall. Not sure I will return, but that’s mostly because I was just visiting family in Minnesota.

Cam here for a late dinner after getting off a flight. The staff was friendly, but the service at first was very slow. Things picked up after that. The prices are very reasonable and the wine selection is okay for this type of establishment. Food here is decent, varied selection of asian type stir frys. I wouldn’t say anything stood out, but it was all decent.

I thought I’d been to Big Bowl before. At my old job, people went all the time, so two years removed I naturally assumed I must have gone at some point. Upon walking in, I realized that no, I’ve actually never been a Big Bowl, which makes me a crap Twin Cities resident and also, wow, my memory is amazingly bad.
There’s nothing special about this place. I think the orange chicken I had wasn’t saucy enough, but I like it to be drowning on the plate and oozing sauce when I pick a piece up. It doesn’t do that here.
Everything is just rather fine. Probably could have done with the waitress not checking on us four times in the hour we were there, but that’s a matter of preference.
Quick, easy, cheap, and kind of a bland comfort food. I can dig it.

One of the least satisfying meals I’ve had in a restaurant in quite a while.
We arrived for our 645 reservation on a Friday and only had to wait a couple of minutes for our table. Almost as soon as we were seated our very eager waiter was standing over us wanting our drink order. Feeling pressured we ordered a glass of wine and a Mai tai which were delivered to the table in just a couple minutes along with glasses of water.
Before we had time to take our first sip he was waiting on us to place our orders. We chose a chicken curry and sesame chicken. The food arrive in less than 10 minutes and was so hot it burnt the roof of my mouth. The sesame chicken was just ok. The chicken seemed very low quality and without much flavor.
All together we were in and out in less than 35 minutes which is great if you are rushing out for a movie or if you are a waiter trying to turn tables. The dining room itself is also very noisy and frenetic with servers rushing back and forth constantly. The whole experience was stressful.
Next time it’s back to PF Chang’s– reliably good and more in line with the kind of experience I’m looking for when dining out.

Our book club met here last night. Service was slow: we waited a long time for our drinks, she didn’t really come around much if we wanted a refill, and sat without water even for most of the meal. Our server was very friendly and enthusiastic, so not sure if she was just overbooked or new.
Skip the Sesame Chicken. It was awful – Leann Chins is way better and half the price. Mostly fried batter bits, hardly any chicken. The other dishes at the table looked good though, and everyone else seemed to enjoy their meal.