text: 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 minutes over to the newly opened Flat Top by Northwestern We totally felt cool because a we were on a college campus b this doyourownstirfry was a total novelty and c it was fun coming up with new combosthat we had made upnnFast 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 is an anomaly rather than a decline of the chain as a whole Or maybe it is always been this way and I have never noticednnI 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 wrongnnWaited awhile to be greeted It seemed to be shortstaffed which I kind of understand because it is summer plus they opened minutes earlier But noon was in minutesis this how you usually rollnThe hostess could not decide where to seat mea lone diner all by myself She veered from the front where there were several groups She was going to seat me at the hightops but given that there were several pairs there veered from the empty ones She then seated mein a cornerall the way around the back Uh oknSeriously if you do not know what you are 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 are here for orientation for your kid or somethingbut some of us have power lunchesnNo employees at the stirfry 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 are enjoying the first one to save time if you are doing the unlimited option nNeedless to say it took forever to get my first dish minutes And then my second dish came two minutes afterwhich was brought by the original hostess who said confusedly I thought you were dining alonenThe ingredients were AWFUL They just opened for the daybut it was so obvious that the ingredients were not 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 thoughnIf you are sitting back to back in the booth chairs they are pretty flimsy The kid behind me kept shifting and I could feel every thump he made It drove me nutsnnSo The only reason why this place did not get one star Julia my waitress She was calm efficient and kept up a running conversation as she moved from table to table She is quite the ladyknows 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 did not have to wait for her in case she got held up Really awesomethanks for a one bowl lunch for the unlimited option If you are a student you get a discountnnThanks Flat Top for shattering a high school memory