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| - Flat Top holds a very very special place in my heart. Back when we were in high school, groups of us would wheedle and deal in order to secure a car, pack it full (ah, the days before there were limits on teenage drivers and their passengers), and drive it 20 minutes over to the newly opened Flat Top by Northwestern. We totally felt cool because a) we were on a college campus, b) this do-your-own-stir-fry was a total novelty, and c) it was fun coming up with new combos...that we had made up.
Fast forward the years. Flat Top has apparently now opened a location steps away from UIUC. And it sucks. It sucks pretty bad. I hope it's an anomaly rather than a decline of the chain as a whole. Or maybe it's always been this way and I've never noticed??
I decided on Flat Top for lunch because some of the other places I wanted to try were closed in preparation for the upcoming school year. And I seemed to remember that Flat Top was pretty quick. I was wrong.
*Waited awhile to be greeted. It seemed to be short-staffed, which I kind of understand because it's summer, plus they opened 40 minutes earlier. But noon was in 20 minutes...is this how you usually roll?
*The hostess couldn't decide where to seat me...a lone diner all by myself. She veered from the front where there were several groups. She was going to seat me at the high-tops, but given that there were several pairs there, veered from the empty ones. She then seated me...in a corner...all the way around the back. Uh, ok.
*Seriously, if you don't know what you're going to put in your stir fry, back up a little instead of blocking the area with your nose pressed up against the glass guard and your head whipping back and forth reading the sauces. Or loiter in that extra empty space to make a decision. I understand you're here for orientation for your kid or something...but some of us have power lunches.
*No employees at the stir-fry station with four or five already on the grill and four or five lined up to be placed on the grill. However, they do let you go thru the line again to make another dish while you're enjoying the first one to save time if you're doing the unlimited option.
*Needless to say, it took forever to get my first dish...15 minutes. And then my second dish came two minutes after...which was brought by the original hostess who said confusedly, "I thought you were dining alone?"
*The ingredients were AWFUL. They just opened for the day...but it was so obvious that the ingredients weren't fresh! The baby corn and bamboo shoots had a distinctly sour taste to them. Green peppers in my stir fry when I never put in green peppers. Vegan meat dry, rubbery, and tasteless. Even the beef had the sour taste of it standing around being marinated in its own sweat for hours. The squid was rubbery. And I think they use egg substitutes because that definitely did not taste like normal egg. I have to say that the tofu was okay though.
*If you're sitting back to back in the booth chairs, they're pretty flimsy. The kid behind me kept shifting and I could feel every thump he made. It drove me nuts.
So. The only reason why this place didn't get one star? Julia, my waitress. She was calm, efficient, and kept up a running conversation as she moved from table to table. She's quite the lady...knows a lot about obscure UIUC stuff and is super friendly to boot. Once she realized that I was on a schedule, she even offered me the check early so I didn't have to wait for her in case she got held up. Really awesome...thanks! $8.99 for a one bowl lunch, $9.99 for the unlimited option. If you're a student, you get a $1 discount.
Thanks, Flat Top, for shattering a high school memory.
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