After school this afternoon, I joined several of my friends to try out the cuisine at FlatTop Grill, near Sixth and Green Streets. I was expecting steaks and fried meat everywhere. How very wrong I was.

As soon as I walked into the restaurant and found my friends (see photo below), a waitress attended to me. She gave me a menu and told me how to create my own stir-fry bowl. There was a stand on the one side of the restaurant that had all sorts of raw food items, which was across from the dining area. In a nearby corner, a chef was stir-frying various combinations of vegetables, meat, sauces, and grains.

Picking up my courage and dragging my friend Jennifer Roloff with me, we went to the ingredients section to customize my 3 o’clock lunch. Amongst the veggie choices, there were: sliced mushrooms, spinach leaves, peas, long beans, diced tomatoes, red rice, short noodles, white rice, pre-cut onions, green onions, tofu, potatoes, and veggie chicken.

In the next section of the bar, there were a number of sauces that could be put into the bowl, such as mushroom, lemongrass, sesame, lime, kung pao, sweet & sour, chili, and peanut.

After that, there was the meat section — raw chicken, raw beef, and raw pork.

One unusual section contained a multitude of colorful plastic sticks that could be inserted in your bowl, each with its own miscellaneous extra — a pancake with the serving, mu-shu style frying, and even a special allergy option.

In the last section, there were a variety of spices, like lemongrass pepper and black pepper.

After finally piling on my ingredients a few inches from the bowl’s rim, I wrote my name on a wooden stick and wedged that, along with a colored stick, into my almost overflowing bowl. Returning to my seat, I chatted a few minutes away with my friends. Before I knew it, the waitress served me a bowl of steaming hot vegetables and chicken. The food was pretty good, especially when my skill at choosing ingredients is factored in. (Note: Lemongrass water does not mix very well with sesame seed oil.)

The only drawback to this otherwise wonderful restaurant is its price. One bowl, piled as high as you can, is about $7 for lunch, or $13 for dinner. You could also choose the unlimited option, $9 for lunch, $14 for dinner.

Well, that and the numerous different options to choose from — you could spend your entire glorious three hours just picking what to put into your bowl!