Flat Top Stir-Fry Grill

Was there before Christmas and bought gift cards for family. Went today for breakfast and paper sign on door. «CLOSED FOR GOOD». Another great place closed. Stir crazy accepts their gift cards. I might lost my Belly rewards but WE lost a great restaurant with excellent service!

Sometimes it seems like my BF and I don’t like ANY of the same things, so a stir-​fry restaurant appeals to us as a way to please both our taste buds. We’ve been to BD Mongolian’s at Bayshore a few times and enjoyed the experience, so thought we’d try this place, as well.
BD’s is a chain. In a mall. Let’s just say the standard is not particularly high. Yet Flat Top failed to meet it on every single level. From service, to time waiting for food, to flavor, if you’re looking for a chain stir-​fry place, don’t go here. Go to BD’s.
There was a big sign on the wall by us that said capacity was 70 people. There were nowhere near that many people in the place on Friday night — maybe about half. Yet it was upwards of 25 minutes between leaving our food to be fried up and having it delivered to our table. I had to ask for a soda refill multiple times — the server would tell me she’d be right back with it and then disappear for 15 minutes at a time.
It was a good thing we had time to kill before a movie, because from start to finish, we were there for an hour and 45 minutes and we did not linger.
One of the reasons I like to get multiple bowls at BDs is because they have so many flavor/​sauce options that I can get two small bowls that taste totally different — but it felt like everything at Flat Top was in the same Chinese/​Japanese/​Far East flavor family.
At BDs, you mix your sauce in a separate bowl — at Flat Top, you just pour ladles on top of your veggies and rice/​noodles. I prefer to be able to mix it in a bowl and taste it and adjust it as I go.
BD’s has many more options for meat — though Flat Top had tons of vegetarian «meat» options. Flat Top charges you and extra $ 3.99 for shrimp, but I’m pretty sure it’s included at BD’s. BD’s also brings your rice or lettuce wraps, etc… to you at the table, meaning you can get refills. At Flat Top, you added your rice or noodles to the bowl, meaning you had to decide right away home much you would need.
Essentially, Flat Top was lacking in every way for me. The service was awful, it took forever to get our food and the options were few. I can’t say I’d go back.

I went here on a Friday and it was not too busy. We were seated immediately and our server was very friendly and patient with us. It was my first time here and all of the options were explained, though there was an awful lot of question asking. As I said, the server was very patient.
I thought the bowls were a little small for all of the combinations but the food seemed fresh. A lot of buffet types of places are hit/​miss if they keep up with the crowd.
Overall I thought the food was OK, some of the ingredients seemed to be coming from cans instead of fresh food. It had a very «chain» like atmosphere to it but remained a comfortable dining environment even on a Friday night.

We’ve been here a bunch of times, I think I’ve finally got down what I like now. There are so many options!
The food is always good. And at the end of the day you’ve only got yourself to blame if it’s not.
I would recommend just getting the one visit stir fry bowl. You can get a ton of food in one bowl.
I found the sauces kind of confusing the first time we went kind of overwhelming. I tend to stick to the combinations on the menu. They usually have someone there helping you out, you can taste them.
Not sure if your supposed to but I usually get two bowls of meat. I would highly recommend the Philipino sausage (the pink looking meat, dont let the looks fool you).
You can add colored «sticks» to your bowl. Each corresponding to an addition. Seems like the most popular is the ‘bread’. This is super good and my wife always get it.
I Always get the Mu-​Shu. They take all of your food and make it into a whole bunch of little parcels kind of like mini burritos. Sooo good!

The only reason this place gets a four from me is because it’s THAT kind of restaurant. I just can’t. But I love this place, I really do.
Mongolian stir fry is my absolute go-​to food. I have tried BDs, and it just doesn’t seem like it is worth the money as much as this place is.
I always start out with a tiger beer for $ 4.50, and maybe some edamame. The spicy chile sauce they serve with it is great.
Then you take your bowl and go to town. They knock a buck off for student ID too.
First there is rice on the end. Then there is a plethora of fresh veggies, noodles etc. There is a curry soy «meat», mushroom «meat», and a section for seasonals such as figs, squash and mandarins. There is everything from bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and mini corn, to potatoes, tomatoes and carrots. It’s a great selection.
Then on to the sauces. They have little sampling cups which is nice and you can always get assistance from the staff if you have a particular flavor you’re looking for. For meat they offer fish, chicken, pork, beef, sausage and calamari. Shrimp too for an upcharge. There is fresh wasabi and ground garlic and cilantro on the end as well.
You can put different sticks in your bowl to customize it, such as lettuce wraps, hot/​sour soup and add egg or shrimp. BE SURE to add the blue stick (I always add two) and get the bread. It tastes just like the grands biscuits that are crispy on the outside and flaky goodness on the inside.
I’ve tried it both as a stir fry and a hot/​sour soup, and love both. Even without the endless bowl. I still have two meals out of this place, for around $ 10.
Two tips:
One, sign up for the email list. They don’t bombard you, you get a free stir fry on b-​day and anniversary, and free appetizers too.
Two, lunch cut-​off is at 4:00, and the price goes up by $ 4.00! It’s the same size bowl, so the jump irks me a little.
Definitely try this place, but I recommend going early afternoon as the wait time gets a little ridiculous when they’re busy.

Good service and good food. It was my first time to visit Flat Top. I was with a few other colleagues for lunch. We all had a good time picking out our ‘bowls’ of rice/​noodles, toppings, sauces, and proteins. I also got the grilled flat bread, which I liked because it was hot and crispy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside.
I would go there again. I was contemplating going there again for dinner that night before I left town but it was not near my hotel/​airport so a bit out of the way.

All you can eat Mongolian BBQ, with a décor that looks like an Applebee’s or a Chili’s… The best thing that flat top has going for it is that it’s just so cheap. 10 dollars all you can eat for lunch? Add whatever the hell you want and they’ll cook it for you? Easy enough for me.
The ingredients start off looking fresh enough when they’re raw. They had quite a nice selection of veggies and meats and even had mission figs when I went (which I loaded up on because they are pretty expensive). Next you have a wide assortment of plain sauces and some pseudo-​asian-​esque sauces. The korean bbq sauce smelled like straight bullseye bbq sauce with maybe a hint of soy sauce. So naturally, I stuck with just plain soy sauce and a bit of spiciness.
The food took quite a bit of time to come out. If there’s one thing in the world that doesn’t take long to cook, it’s stir fry. I thought maybe the 15 minute wait was just because there was a back up of orders or something. When I finally got my food, it became apparent that it was probably my actual food that was cooking for 15 minutes. So everything kind of just blended together in a big pile of mush. The noodles fell apart, the veggies got soft, the meat was overcooked and too chewy. The flavor was kind of bland, but that was probably my fault, so I added more sauce for my second bowl and that turned out better. Also, don’t forget to add the paratha bread to your bowl!
I can definitely see myself coming back when I get a craving for some all you can eat cheap stir fry.

DIY Mongolian Stir-fry…West Coasters, think Great Khan’s in the malls, but better.
The only reason this place is a 3 for me is that you get a bang for your buck. For lunch, you can have all you can eat for $ 10, and $ 1 off if you’re a student. I don’t know how they make money off of the AYCE during lunch… I must have ate at least $ 20 worth of food if I had gotten it at a place like Panda or something.
The pros: They do a fun twist to making your own bowl concoction. The variety in veggies and sauces (omg the sauces are overwhelming) are great. They have good meats like chicken breast, sirloin beef, calamari, fish, chorizo?! Even when a bowl you fill looks small in the beginning, it always turns out pretty big afterward. The roti bread is very yummy and its not extra. It also looks like they have a bar, but did not look into that as I was on lunch break.
The cons: The sauces are on the salty side so laddle them yourselves if you can. For the saltier sauces I would do one or two laddles less then what they tell you. The quality of the rice noodles they have is poor; it’s mushy and breaks off easily which is not all that appetizing when you’re eating it. I would personally go with egg noodles. A to-​go box for food you do not finish is $ 5. I guess it’s not too bad if you make one extra bowl afterwards and just stuff it into a to-​go box. That’s dinner or lunch for tomorrow!
Great for students and lunchtime… I wouldn’t come here any time other than lunch.

Um… I’m torn. I love the vegan /​veggie options offered at flatop. All kinda of vegan ‘meats’, healthy veggies, zillion sauces. They also have octopus which is one of my fav things ever (weird facts about me.) One of the only places I feel confident I can get a really healthy meal at a sit down restaurant in Milwaukee. They give out coupons if you sign up on their website for a free birthday meal, etc. I love the classy dark wood in the little dining area.
On the other hand… as of late, they’ve been, well, very late with the food. Specifically, the last maybe 5 times we’ve been, food has taken 25 min plus during the lunch hour usually in a restaurant that’s 50% full. The blood pressure lowering effect of eating a plant based diet is negated by the blood pressure raising effect of sitting there wondering how *&%$ing late your going to be walking back in the office after lunch. I really never understand the hold up: when the restaurant first opened, they were busier and the food came FASTER. Also, I’m putting together the food for u! All ya gotta do is cook it!
Also, I’m not a big stickler, but all us restaurant goers are reaching in those big vats of rice for the spoon. I can’t quite wrap my brain around if that’s ok some days.
I like this place… just not the wait.

Slight learning curve.
Food was Fantastic.
Took about 20 min to get food after bowls were filled.
Bread was very oiled, after 3 soaked napkins, it was edible.

We are regulars of this causal «Mongolian-​style» restaurant. It can get crowded on the weekends and longer wait times for your stir fry. I have mu shu rolls often made from my stir fry — plenty of leftovers for next day’s lunch. I have tried the soup too, but the seafood got over cooked, I will attempt it again soon.
My hubs always uses the brown rice and adds grilled shrimp.
I really suggest it for fresh food is a boisterous setting.
The sauce and condiment oprions are great! They staff is very eager to assist those who need it.

Flat Top Grill in Wauwatosa is one of 30 restaurants in 8 states. The create your own stir fry restaurant concept isn’t new, see HuHot and Stir Crazy, but Flat Top may have the most confusing system. Color codes and colored sticks that need a PowerPoint presentation to understand. The staff is very accommodating in the process.
JIST: The wait staff brings a big red bowl to the table. Take a wooden flag and write your name on it. Hang onto this for later. Proceed to the ingredient table. Pick noodles or rice, select sauces, vegetables and protein, choose a colored stick to customize, put your name stick flag in the bowl, it’s then cooked and brought to your table.
I personally don’t like going to all that trouble only to have my plate taken away from me and out of my sight. If it tastes bad it’s your effing fault Bobby Flay.
GERMAPHOBES: On a germaphobe scale I’m at a ⁶⁄₁₀. The general public touching the same ingredient serving spoons and trusting them with raw chicken is a bit unnerving.
WHAT EVERYONE IS THINKING BUT WON’T SAY: What’s the combination that won’t give me stomach «discomfort» so bad I risk setting off the smoke detectors in my home?

I love flattop grill. I have been going here for years. Frankly if you don’t like the food than it’s your own damn fault. Take some cooking classes or better yet stop eating so much cheese and bratwurst and start taking some spinning classes or some sh**.
GO BEARS!

Flat Top Grill is one of my biggest guilty pleasure restaurants in the Milwaukee area. We try to avoid chains for dinner, but this is one we can’t seem to resist. We first stumbled upon Flat Top Grill in the winter of 2010 when some friends asked us to join them; since then, we’ve been back three or four times.
Pros:
–My husband is a picky eater. There are so many options that we can each customize our dinners with completely different items and enjoy it.
–Offerings include chicken, steak, shrimp, meatless «meat,» tofu, and more. Vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, and carnivore friendly.
–Fast, attentive service. I’ve had at least two different servers who were happy to make sauce combination recommendations, which can be helpful.
–Reasonable prices: $ 12.99 for one dinner bowl; $ 14.99 for 2+.
Cons:
–None I can think of.

I went back here yesterday and am glad to see things are still going well. They were very busy and the food was still fresh and good. I found a new sauce combination I really liked. I took two ladles of the Sesame Ginger and one of the Wild Mushroom. If you go… try that… Yum!!!

As much as I would love to give FlatTop four stars, there are a few consistent problems here. First, and most annoying, it seems to take forever to get your food. I go to lots of mongolian-​style places, so I don’t think I have unreasonable expectations, but 15 – 20 minutes to get your food when the grill is half empty and there are only two bowls on the counter ahead of you seems excessive. There is also a consistent problem with their blue sticks for their funky bread, add one stick for a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ chance of getting one, or add two for random odds of getting zero, one, or two. The thing that’s really bugged me a lot on recent trips, however, is freshness. Yesterday the broccoli was brownish, like it was from last week, but the peas and beans were super-​fresh. It is better to skip a veggie entirely than to put out poor-​looking stuff.
I also find it annoying when packs of newbies from local businesses come and wander like lost sheep through the buffet and sauce selection process. This is of course just a hazard of the restaurant model and I can’t blame FlatTop for it, but good advice is to avoid the noon hour.

I’m done with you, Wauwatosa Flat Top Grill. We’re finished.
We had a less than stellar experience last year but since it’s near our friend’s house, we decided to give it a whirl for breakfast again, hoping they worked out their kinks.
Wrong.
I just don’t understand how the Flat Tops in Chicago are SO much better than this location. It’s like, if you could get it wrong, it was done wrong… and that’s just ridiculous.
You add a bacon stick to your order? Nope. You don’t get bacon. When you bring it to the waitress’ attention, she brings you some mostly raw bacon that no one, especially not a pregnant woman, should consume. You put a hash brown stick in your order? No hash browns. Then, when you request some from the waitress, it takes 20 minutes to get some cold potato quarters that are clearly NOT hash browns. You put a sausage stick in your bowl, you get the previously mentioned mostly raw bacon.
My stepdaughter requested bacon and got sausage. My omelet was runny. We had to constantly ask for refills for coffee and water. After leaving our bowls at the counter it took significantly longer than I’ve ever had to wait at a Chicago Flat Top for our orders… 15 minutes or more. We asked for the check and it took another 15 minutes.
The breakfast we usually eat in Chicago at a Flat Top in less than a hour took almost TWO at this location… and we left feeling like we had been ripped off.
Seriously… this place is a train wreck and I’m done.

YUUUUUUUUUM! This place has tons of vegan options and is delicious. A friend and I went for the lunch buffet and it was really slow around 2pm (it is probably busy a little earlier). We went with the $ 8 lunch bowl and I paid an extra $ 1.50 to make mine an unlimited refill, although I could barely finish my 2^nd bowl.
The restaurant’s website has a fabulous vegetarian/​vegan ingredient section and even points out that some dressings contain honey but no other animal ingredients. Very cool that they recognize vegans don’t eat honey. I told the server I was vegan so she brought out a laminated allergy/​ingredient list to help me figure out what I could eat on the buffet. The buffet itself does a pretty good job of listing ingredients, for instance, a lot of the sauces indicate if they have fish sauce, peanuts, or wheat.
I tried a few proteins (seitan, tofu, BBQ tempeh and «curry pakora») and liked them all. The BBQ tempeh was by far my favorite, as it had a fabulous texture, and it tasted more like a fake meat than a tempeh. The curry pakora was very similar to the BBQ tempeh so I have no idea why it’s called curry pakora.
The best part of the buffet is that they have tiny little paper cups so you can sample a veggie, protein, or sauce before committing to a big bowl. My favorite combo was a sort of Asian combo using BBQ tempeh, veggies, wheat noodles (although rice noodles and rice were available), and lemongrass, hoison, and hot sauces.

Very interesting concept, i guess it’s nothing new, but i’ve never had it before — build your own stir-​fry.
Location looks nice and clean. You start off by building your own bowl of stir-​fry, there are plenty of veggies available but i would like to see more, maybe olives, artichoke harts, baby corn. Then you have a choice of 24 sauces. Your waiter will volunteer to mix you one if you wish. And a choice of meat. Moving down the line, you’ll have 6 different choices of how you want it prepared: regular, soup, wrap…
Also, try their signature Horny Monkey COCKtail, it’s pretty good :) I felt pretty greedy and decided to do ‘unlimited’ bowl (+$ 2)… In Japan, they say «leave table slightly hungry», i wish i used that advice.
In general, i liked it and will be back.

Benn to many of this type of place before, but not to FlatTop before. It’s a local chain to WI and IL. It’s definitely a place for picky eaters, because you can micromanage everything here. You can even put a special swizzle stick into your bowl to denote if it will be cooked in separate pans, if you have an allergy or are vegan/​kosher/​whatever.
Like a lot of these places, they are a little pushy with the sauces. I hate when they want to make the sauce decision for you. So I was ready when I got to that part of the line after hearing the server with another diner. Sure I’ll try your B.S. combination. But that’s IT, bucko!
I actually liked the choice they made. So I used it and it worked out ok.
One thing I really loved: I look at the menu, and see «Chipotle Pineapple Lemonade.» That’s just crazy enough to work. And It was great. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but if you got excited when you read that it’s as good as it sounds.
More space inside here than it seems, very comfy. Staff was very attentive and friendly. A well-​oiled machine.
I think all things considered a better option than Stir Crazy, though a little more expensive. I’ll be back definitely though.