Big Bowl

Came in for lunch my first time. The waiter was friendly and knowledgeable about the menu and I went with his recommendation of the Chicken Pad Thai. For the price I guess the portion was ok but they put a big handful cilantro and basil in it? Did not taste great but felt bad sending it back so I ate and left quickly :(
Overall thoughts overpriced, friendly staff, quality chicken… Might try again someday… But not in the near future

Came here to eat lunch before a movie at the mall. Got seated pretty quickly and the waiter came by thereafter. The waiter took our order and left us alone until the food came which is what we wanted. The food came out and it was your typical chicken teriyaki and curry chicken plates… my teriyaki had way too many green beans for my liking. Overall not bad and what one would expect from a chain. Did the trick for me but wish there had been other options to eat nearby.

This is a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant… not too bad. The flavors are good, the portions are big,

My friend and I had Vietnamese spring roll and crab Rangoon to start off with, both very good. For entrees we both had Pad Thai. I felt like there was a hint of flavor missing, tasted a tad bland to me, but pretty good. Just wish there was more flavor to it but the portions are huge. For dessert we had the Carmel ice cream with chocolate cake underneath, probably the best thing we had there. Service was nice and friendly.
We both had drinks, 2 appetizers, entrees and desserts and the bill was about $ 85 for the 2 of us. Pretty pricey, but the atmosphere is nice, good service, overall a good experience.

Skip this place. I came here years ago and remember I had a terrible experience with the pad Thai. Was forced to come back because everyone wanted to eat here even with my warnings.
I ordered the chicken teriyaki fried rice and it was pretty much swimming in teriyaki. The only thing edible was the chicken and that wasn’t that great either.

Along my route. Not a chain in Indiana. Although they have a daily special, I was drawn to the flank steak with shiitake and button mushrooms, two types of onions, and jasmine rice. It was delicious. However, the rice was not that moist.
I signed up for the reward app. The host and waitresses were not familiar that their reward program /​birthday reward.
The décor was simple. LIKE.

Stopped by this place two days ago for lunch. The staff was super friendly and I loved the restaurant atmosphere. It reminded me of when I used to work at Stir Crazy with the stir fry station and menu format. The food here was way better though. Best wonton soup I’ve had in a very long time. Tasted flavorful, light yet comforting and super fresh. Nothing contains msg. Kudos to that. The lettuce wraps were pretty solid as well, had to have them as an ode to Lettuce Entertain You. Warning: prices are a bit steep here. On the upside, they created appetizer happy hour from 3 – 6! I’ll be taking advantage of that on my next visit.

There are definitely better places to eat in the area. I’d advise to check out something else. Expensive and the food was mediocre. I got the pad Thai, my kids got the orange chicken and my husband got a Thai curry dish. Does not even hold a candle to Pei Wei or PF Chang’s. The sangria was mostly ice and not very flavorful. All in all the best part about this place was the fresh Ginger Ale. I don’t understand how they don’t have an alcoholic drink using their own ginger ale. They should change their business model around the ginger ale. Just my opinion

I hated it. 530 Ina Saturday night and the place was packed. Parking was horrible. The poor waitress had to deliver a script while we ordered depicting how much every upgrade was and everything seemed to have an additional charge. If you like a cocktail, bring your checkbook. $ 11 for a Mai tai in a rocks glass! I had the orange chicken which was mediocre at best. You’d be better off getting Chinese takeout from a real Chinese place and sitting in your living room to eat it.

Drinks not great, food was not the best… Noodles not done and same with the pork dumplings. When asked to reheat dumplings… They truly REHEATED them, didn’t make us a fresh batch. Disappointing!

I saw not one bowl!
It only took my friend about 20 minutes of perusing Unilocal to finally decide on where to go to eat. Big Bowl won out because 1. It’s close to Ikea where we just spent three hours of our lives looking some Swedish jam (yeah, Swedish jam, it’s a thing). And 2. It’s asian food! Can’t go wrong with some curry or pad thai. Yummm.
When we went it was early evening on a Saturday and apparently it’s the place to be cause it was packed. (Btw good luck finding a parking spot. Not an easy task.) Good news, the place is pretty big so we did get seated right away.
Now on to the hard part… what to order. The server was friendly and went through the menu for us. Now reading a menu is rocket science but she explained how the stir fry bar worked. Which was either letting the chef pick everything for you or you picking out your own proteins and whatnot. I wasn’t truly listening because I knew I didn’t want that. Instead I got the vegetable pad thai. I heard that’s what they are known for and when eating at a place you have gotta try their calling card. Overall, I thought that the pad thai was alright. It was good in the moment but nothing memorable. And it could be just that I’m someone who prefers a little more spices.
I also ordered two drinks: a Sapporo (just cause I wanted to try it) and their special of the day a glass of blood orange sangria. The Sapporo, which is a Japanese beer, did not taste like beer. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t worth it. It was like a flat hard cider. The sangria, on the other hand, was great! Perfect balance of fruit and wine. The blood orange added a nice tangy taste to it. I would have loved to drink more!
Cons of the place is that it’s $$$$. For some of the dishes the portion are big, so it’s not too overpriced, but for other things, like the cocktails, they are hella expensive. So make sure you check your bank balance beforehand.
To sum it up, if you’re in the area (and maybe hungry from looking for jam) I’d check this place out.

We went there yesterday, the food was nothing special .I really think it is expensive and not that great. I will not go back.

It’s a very nice restaurant with plenty of food options especially for vegetarians. The interior is very nice and clean, except the washrooms were abut dirty. The server was friendly and fast. I got the vegetarian pot stickers and pad Thai, which was great. The ginger sauce was very nice. I would definitely come back to try other items on the menu and would recommend this place to everyone.

I’m not really a fan of these commercial «ethnic» types of restaurants, but the choices from my +1 were Big Bowl or a brewery, and I just wasn’t feelin’ the latter. When we arrived it was about half full, but was crowded by 8. This was on a Tuesday evening, too… I guess Big Bowl is still a happenin’ place.
Drinks: Original Ginger Ale ($ 4)
Just what I needed: nice and ginger-​y without being overly strong.
Appetizer: Potsticker Combo ($ 9 for six)
The combo includes two pork, two chicken, and two veggie. I wasn’t a huge fan of the veggie; the peanuts didn’t do it for me — not only a texture thing, but while biting the potstickers, peanuts started tumbling out. Meh. Maybe if they were crushed up a bit? The sauces were good, but I’d have been just as content with soy sauce.
Entrée: Ginger Sea Scallops and Shrimp ($ 17), brown rice
The best parts were the scallops: they were cooked perfectly. The flavor of the dish was really nice and the quantity was actually more ample than I had assumed. The shrimp were deshelled (yay!), but also in these little corkscrew shapes which kind of weirded me out because they looked like pasta. I mean. what do they do, wrap them around sticks before cooking? They tasted fine and weren’t rubbery or overcooked.
My only complaints had to do with the brown rice and the sauce. The rice was reeeally fluffy (Uncle Ben’s-like) so was kind of all over the place and impossible to eat with chopsticks. I like my rice to be… I dunno, heartier? And the sauce? There was WAY TOO MUCH of it! It absolutely drowned the rice. It was a watery consistency, so really no way to contain it and save the rice! Oh well; I guess I’ll just make fresh rice at home to go with my leftovers.
Dessert: nil. nada. zilch.
Our server came by with a plate showcasing their four desserts. We had seen the same display plate just chillin’ on a station area by the aisles when we were seated. The same plate was left between that aisle with lots of traffic and about 8″ from my (very clean) head. I know it’s common for restaurants to have desserts presented in this manner because it’s a convenient way to show customers their options, and I know these are thrown away. I get it, but these plates had been sitting out uncovered on the top of the station area (s – there were multiple) and out in the open, crusting over… just was visually unappealing to me, so no dessert for us.
$ 25 before tip — with delicious seafood leftovers — was A-​OK.

I hadn’t heard of big bowl, but was pleasantly surprised. I was in Schaumburg for business, and it was convenient.
They have a nice blend of Thai and Chinese food. They have their own Ginger Ale. I ordered a Thai Chili shrimp that had a really nice combination of heat and flavor.

I guess it wasn’t completely false to call this place“big bowl” since the bowl was big, but the serving was small. I take that back, the bowl was actually medium sized. (Read ’til the end for a surprise in my water.)
We were staying in Schaumburg when we were visiting the Chicago area for my cousin’s wedding and were curious about the food at Big Bowl since it seemed interesting.
The food was mediocre and serving sizes were smaller than I expected considering pictures and the prices. I got the orange chicken which was nothing special. If you are looking for something more flavorful, you should check out Panda Express. My whole family was not impressed with the food at all. The soup was bland, the potstickers were nothing special even though it was highlighted as one of their best menu items and my niece’s butter noodles were exactly that… noodles with butter, but no flavor. We had to pour the potsticker sauce over her noodles to improvise flavor. Needless to say, this place is horrible.
On top of the bad food, there was a fly in my water when they refilled my glass. I picked it up started taking a sip and there it was. This means there were plenty of people being served in the restaurant water from a pitcher that had that fly in it. Gross.
Let me add one more thing. We were a relatively big group (7 adults and 2 children). The host put us in the back of the restaurant which is not too bad, but the servers were nowhere to be found. The only time we really saw our server was initially for our orders and then the check. We consistently had to flag down someone to get any kind of drink refills (to get a new water) or for napkins, etc.
I get it. The restaurant sure is pretty. BUT if you want good food and service… DO NOT GO HERE.

For fresh Chinese and Thai, this place has it.
The family was craving some Chinese food but also wanted something that didn’t cause us to make a date with our bathroom afterwards. My sister and her «roommate» live out in Schaumburg and recommended here. Okay, cool.
We went on a Friday around 5:30pm so it wasn’t too busy. We were sat right away.
Our waitress was very nice and attentive, she took a minute to go through the menu for my wife and I, who had never been there before and explained how the menu was laid out. We got some overpriced beers and looked over the menu. As far as the menu goes, there isn’t a big variety, they keep it simple. When I see that, I assume the offerings then are perfected.
We got the variety potstickers appetizer as well as the chicken lettuce wraps. They were okay. I was a little disappointed in the potstickers, they were small and other than the veggie one, they lacked a burst of flavoring. As for the chicken lettuce wraps, I just wasn’t a fan. It was dense and combining the rice noodles in the wet mixture made for an odd consistency. I’ll pass next time on either.
As for the main course, I got the sesame chicken with fried rice, the wife got shrimp pad thai, the other two got the same thing and our little one got chicken bites. It didn’t take terribly long for our food to arrive, and these were the highlight of the evening. The sesame chicken was fantastic, nice chunks of delicious chicken breast, lightly coated and fried to perfection, with a spicy sesame sauce. Wow. The fried rice was good too, wasn’t heavy, full of flavor, just pure deliciousness. I had a bite of my wife’s shrimp pad thai, very good, huge flavor, and didn’t feel heavy or greasy. I loved it.
All and all we had a good time, the entrée’s were a knockout, but the appetizers, and the price will make me consider going somewhere else probably, not to say I would never go back here, but I’ll have to really be in the mood.

Just a review on a few items I had…
I rate it two stars because I have had better but it’s a personal preference…
Service was good, Cooking was good, Ingredients were good.
Summer Rolls… I guess these are ok. We ordered the ones with shrimp and I couldn’t find any shrimp in them??? Maybe they were diced up so small as they only charge like 75 cents more than the vegetarian roll??? Worth $ 7.50, no.
Chinese spare ribs were good. Fall off the bone which is not normal for how Chinese cook them but the flavor is good. This was the best item I had.
Pad Thai… Umm all I can say is sour?! Like either there was a vinegar soy in there or they squeezed a lot of lime juice into the sauce. I’ve never tasted anything like it before in Thailand or any Thai restaurant here in the US… The chicken in it was very good as well as the rest of the ingredients, the sauce is not good, killed the dish.
Shrimp & scallop dish. Cooked perfectly… salty as no other… there was so much of the soupy sauce it pooled and soaked into the rice… maybe this is normal presentation???
I can’t say I’d be back unless someone I was with wanted to go there. I prefer more authentic vs strong and salty dishes. At least I got double points…

I was searching for quality Chinese cuisine and found it! This place rocks. I ordered the stir fry (chicken and shrimp). I kicked it up several notches with Sichuan sauce, jalapeño peppers, and habanero peppers. It was one of the best meals I have had this year… by far.
The server was attentive and great. The bill was reasonable. The setting and ambience is really great. I recommend you give this place a shot… you won’t regret it.

I was excited when I moved to Chicago and saw Big Bowl here. We’d had them in my previous home (Dallas) for a while but then they all closed. It was the first place I ever had lettuce wraps (cups of iceberg lettuce filled with spicy chicken and rice noodles), and they made their own ginger ale.
However, I’ve lived here a number of years now and somehow never made it to Big Bowl! So yesterday, in need of lunch and near the mall, a friend and I stopped in.
There was a supposed wait of 15 minutes, but it ended up being much less. Good thing, because there weren’t any benches etc. to wait on, just some tall two-​top tables annexed from the bar… but how about if bar patrons are using them? The lobby isn’t huge to accommodate, say, a waiting week-​end crowd.
Anyway, we got a table quickly and our waitress swept in to inform us of how everything works. They serve Chinese and Thai fare, and also have a stir fry bar (think BD’s, Flat Top Grill etc.)
Their menu starts with a number of creative cocktails, as well as beer and wine (nice that they tell you the origin), and they still make the fresh ginger ale, but we both got the fresh lemonade: plain for her, hibiscus for me, both excellent.
We started with the chicken and peanut egg rolls, probably the best egg rolls I’d ever had: hot, crispy wontons stuffed with the creative filling. However, you don’t get spoons with your utensils, only forks (no knife either???) and since we didn’t want to double-​dip we had to drip or smear on sauce with our forks, which was awkward.
There are a lot of tempting entrée choices, but finally my friend chose the sesame chicken and I got the Thai chicken panang curry.
Here is where Big Bowl committed an infraction that I really despise. I look carefully at lists of ingredients on the menu to make sure I like everything; otherwise I will ask that the dish be made without it, or if it’s too critical, just order something else. The panang curry is described on the menu as «sliced chicken in peanut-​coconut curry sauce, fresno peppers, snow peas.» I like snow peas (the slim, crunchy pods), so I went ahead and ordered.
When I got the dish, it came with a couple of snow peas but about two fistfuls of regular peas, which I just can’t eat (it’s a texture thing). So I spent five minutes painstakingly picking them all out of my dish. When the waitress came to check on us I asked why it wasn’t specified on the menu (it’s worth mentioning that other items on the menu do say «peas» specifically). She said they could make the dish again, but I wasn’t going to make my friend wait and we didn’t have time.
She went away, and a few minutes later the chef came out, again saying they could remake the dish, but again, we didn’t wish to wait (and I had already deconstructed my dish anyway). THEN the manager came over, offered again to remake it («»), and said they were taking it off the bill for the trouble. (I realized later this is a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant, and this seems to be their M.O. when something is wrong, because I recall similar treatment when something was made incorrectly at Wildfire many years ago.) It was nice that they tried to make it right, but ultimately the menu needs to be correct.
Anyway, the dish was very good, though for something specified as spicy it really wasn’t: the coconut and peanut flavors smoothed over everything. The chicken was incredibly tender, and the veggies crisp.
My friend said her sesame chicken might have been the best she’d ever had, very flavorful (It looked lovely with colorful veggies and lacquered-​brown meat).
Overall, despite the bobble of inconvenience, Big Bowl’s management knew how to rectify the problem, and the food really is excellent. Try it out (but inquire about the ingredients if you have any doubts).