As far as airport options go, this was a wise choice. There's a nice amount of seating with bench/chair combo and bar table seating as well. I was able to get half Kung Pao Chicken and Seasame Chicken on Fried rice. It's wasn't no frozen tasting Chinese.. it was really delectable. I'd never had either entrees. Both were flavorful with the Kung Pao having done heat it was actually my favorite. The combined veggies mixed in made it complete! read more

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Terminal 5 fast food. I ordered the Emperors Tofu & vegetables. Very filling and fast! I asked for sweet vs spicy. A little bland and needed more tofu. Definitely add the ginger soy sauce to help. Seemed a bit pricey at $23 for a few tofu pieces and stir friend veggies, but I guess that's airport pricing! Limited seating with a few bar stools. More of a grab and go spot. read more

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Terminal 5 is probably the least food-friendly terminals at O'Hare. But when you're starving, the Big Bowl ain't so bad. I got an order of fried tofu and veggies over white rice. The tofu and veggies hit the spot, although the sauce was a bit sickly sweet. And the rice was well cooked and soaked up lots of the flavor from the bowl. Not bad - remember we're in an airport so it could always be worse, a lot worse. Thank you Big Bowl for being there when I needed it. If you find yourself stuck in Terminal 5, give Big Bowl a try! read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Tofu and veggies over rice - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

Not the most cost-effective place to eat--then again, airports never are, right? However, the food here was pretty good for Terminal 5, and this spot came highly recommended by most people flying out. I ordered the Sesame Chicken & Kung Pao Chicken Combo (not listed on the menu, but you can request it). I can't speak to its authenticity since it was my first time trying this chain, but if you're in a pinch and need something with some flavor before boarding your flight, this is the place. The portion sizes won't change your life, but the drinks and customer service from the bar certainly make up for that. The bartender, Shay (I think that's her name), was friendly and informative. There's a decent selection of adult beverages, and the high tops were clean. I don't have a picture because I ate it too fast--welp! This was my experience on a weekday when it was slow, and my food was hot. I can't guarantee the same experience on a busier weekend. But if I'm ever in Terminal 5 again, I'll definitely eat here. read more

Similar in concept to a Panda Express. Can't tell if the food is slightly better or just hits a little different because it's new to me. Got the sesame chicken...it was fine read more

Food is good but it was WAY overpriced ($20) and a much smaller portion than you would get at a real Big Bowl. The food was ready really quickly and was packaged very conveniently if you had to take it to your gate though. There is a food court around the corner (also overpriced) but slightly more reasonable than Big Bowl. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Orange Chicken - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

Very good food. Love their orange chicken. Specially now it's halal certified. Great news for Muslims. Food servicing is very fast.

Too expensive. Food isn't fresh. Rude service. There you go. The food was cold. They charge over $2 more for brown rice. The rice was mushy. Did I mention the food was cold? This cost more than $20! Outrageous for the portion and lack of quality. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Kung Pao chicken with brown rice (extra charge) - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

Don't do it! This place is a rip off. I know you can expect to pay more for airport food but really?! They charged me $24 for a combination plate (orange chicken and kung pao chicken) with brown rice and two pot stickers. As you can tell by my very small to go container (maybe 4 x 8 inches), approximately 60% of it was rice and then there was maybe a 1/2 cup of each entree) along with the two pot stickers. Both entrees had very few pieces of actual chicken. They were both mostly vegetables and very little sauce. What pieces of chicken I had were small and dried out. I also wanted to purchase an egg roll but was told, "We don't do that." I told her I wanted to buy it but she said you can only buy one extra item with each entree ordered. She was not very nice. It's too bad there is very little food offerings in an airport the size of O'Hare. I'll eat chips rather than come here again. read more

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Super salty food that was over sauced (in the bad kind of way). Had the kung pao chicken and the orange chicken and among the worst I've tasted. Pricey too. $23 for lo mein and two side combo. Wish I read the reviews beforehand and went with a different option. read more

It's worth trying regarding the limitation of options at terminal 5. The sesame chicken was fine and only a bit salty, the rice was meh, the service was good, and it's overpriced like anything else at an airport. It would be better if the portion could be increased. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

I thought the food was terrible. King Pao Chicken was overwhlemingly soy, chicken was dry and hard. Sesame chicken almost the same, with loads of deep fried dough chunks in (which sadly were better than chicken.) Service is walk up to counter, and POS credit card system doesn't allow you to skip the tip for the non-waiter clerk. You have to choose a custom tip and enter zero. I ate 2-3 bites of each and chucked most of the $20 mistake. read more

To be honest, I don't think this place is that bad for airport food--overpriced, yes, but not bad. I got beef and broccoli which was a bit mushy but had alright ginger+soy flavor, and the sesame chicken had good flavor as well but was too salty. For the price ($20), it was definitely not worth the serving size as alas, it is a small bowl and does not live up to its name. HOWEVER, nearly no airport food is worth the price so if you are craving Chinese food and starving before your flight, I think it's a good option. read more

I had an amazing plate of pad thai at this Big Bowl. The service was prompt and friendly. My meal was truly excellent. They offered chili paste on the side which was excellent. Great ambiance. read more

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Food was so-so. Potstickers were dry. Rice had dry clumps. Broccoli tasted bad... I tried to get a seat at the bar, but got a server asked me to change to a table further away. Two power outlets under my new table didn't work. I regretted dining at Big Bowl. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Combination bowl with beef & broccoli, potstickers, and chicken bowl, plus sparkling water. All food items tasted bad. :-( - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

I read other reviews so here is what I will say. Service is ok. They were not rude to me but I can kinda see how staff could be rude. The guy in front of me didn't read the prices for his order. He wound up paying more than he thought. Staff tried to show him but he wasn't understanding. As a staff person I bet that could be frustrating. If I was a customer, I could see how it could be implied that they were rude. So there is a thin line. Prices are overpriced but it's airport food. Everything is overpriced. Otherwise, the food was good. Average for the Asian type food that's not cooked by Asian people. I would go back if I had a taste for this type of food. read more

Be thankful it's here. Choices in O'hare Intl terminal 5 is limited. My orange chicken was surprisingly excellent. It was crunchy but not overly breaded. I can even get a hint of orange peel. Rice was a little dry My wife's mongolian beef taste was spot on but beef like the rice was dry. It is a little pricey but I guess you don't have a choice. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Big Bowl - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

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This venue is located in Chicago O'Hare airport. I was looking for vegetarian or vegan options and decided to try Big Bowl. I ordered the tofu and vegetables. This dish took about 10 minutes to prepare. It was worth the wait. Often in my experience tofu dishes are mushy or the tofu is tasteless. This was tofu done right. The firmness and flavor of the dish were excellent. The portion was large. Overall this was a delicious choice. read more

Plain as cardboard white rice and stale old chicken = $17.65 with an employee discount. Absolutely disgusting $8 price change overnight. The food also tastes disgusting. It could be at least passable for the $9.50 price before, even though rice and chicken equals nowhere close to $10. Hope this place goes out of business asap. No need for this overpriced garbage at O'Hare. read more

It's airport food...and it wasn't bad! I had the Kung Pao chicken bowl, and while pricey of course due to the airport location, it was flavorful and the portion size was good. A regular bowl with no beverage or appetizers was around $14. They do seem to do a decent business during busy hours, so the food is reasonably fresh given that, like all fast-food Chinese food places, the food is sitting in trays on a steam table. The choices were very limited; I think there were 4 options for entrees the evening we were there, but in my opinion, limited choices probably helps ensure nothing is sitting on that steam table too long. Service was fast and bowls are served with lids so you could bring the food on the plane if you were in a hurry. There is some seating available if you have more time. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Kung pao chicken bowl - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

Could only offer 2 entrees. Kung Pao Chicken and Orange Chicken. The Kung Pao had peanuts in it! There was no sign to signal this nor do peanuts go in Kung Pao. The 2 entrees looked unusual and I thought I would try it but it was not good. It was extremely oily as well. The noodles were tender still, not soft. The noodles also had next to no flavor. I will be putting this under my "Never Again" board. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Peanuts in Kung Pao and oily noodles with next to no flavor. - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

Let me start off by saying, I skimmed the Yelp reviews before choosing to eat here. M terminal has very limited options, so you should probably eat elsewhere beforehand if you can -- if you're not trying to spend a lot, you'll be left w/ only McDonald's. For Airport food, not terrible, but not great. If this were a real restaurant, I would probably give 2 stars for the food. The container is not very sustainable, but nice in the sense that it's fully resealable, so you can bring on your flight w/ you! I got the Orange chicken & lo mein bowl (it came out to $16.70). The low mein was varying temperatures, with some parts crunchy, and other parts soft. This leads me to believe that it had been sitting in the metal dish for a while... the Orange chicken was not the taste I was looking for, but I may have just been expecting the wrong thing. I had no problems w/ the service, but it was nothing special. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Lo mein & Orange chicken - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

VERY MUCH MISLEADING.! If you order Brown Rice, Fried Rice or Lo Mein as "Add On" you WON'T get the white rice like it is says you do. It'll be extra! I get it, airport food is over priced but when I'm getting mislead that's a different story... read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

What a miserable, filthy place with miserable, mean employees. The entire facility looked like a forgotten war zone, and (mid-bite!), we were kicked out of the only spot that was reasonably clean. They were out of the noodles and the sesame chicken was bland. read more

The food is way too salty. My family & I ordered 3 different entrees and they were all hard to eat because of this. It was also too expensive for the quality of food received. Would not recommend. read more

Not good. It's deceiving--it looks good. So much so that I ignored the bad reviews on Yelp and ate there anyway. $20 for one meal, and it was bad. Ate half of it and threw the rest away. Honestly you're better off going to the Burger King 10 feet away. It's that bad. read more

Such a bad eating experience. Food is nothing like the "real" Big Bowl but that's to be expected at an airport. However, this place seems very poorly managed. It was chaotic just to order food and the tables/bar was dirty and no one came to clean it up at all. Kind of gross actually. Won't eat here again and I wouldn't recommend anyone else to do so either. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

We ordered Uber Eats pick up for Big Bowl. The food was average, the chicken in our chicken teriyaki was dry and not good. I ordered Hot & Sour soup and got egg drop. They did not include and silverware. Overall for $87 it was not worthy! read more

Ordered the Emperor's tofu and vegetable dish. Was told they ran out of it. I asked if there were any vegetarian dishes and the woman said "We have a noodle dish." So I asked what kind of noodles, what's in it, etc. because it wasn't listed on any visible menu. Without a word, she immediately turned to her right and started refilling the white rice, which was quite a process. She left me standing there for a few minutes while she worked--clearly she was not going to offer any customer service. It was incredibly rude so I just walked off (which was probably what she wanted me to do). People like this should be fired. read more

After striking out at two other cheaper food establishments on my search for vegetarian options, I hesitantly circled back to Big Bowl despite the poor ratings on Yelp. I saw a tofu and vegetable bowl on the menu but was worried that they were out of it because I did not see the dish laid out with the other pre-made meat options on the counter. I ordered it anyway and was told it would take 10 min. My total was around $12 and I would have preferred brown rice but was not willing to pay the extra $2. I dug into my meal with VERY low expectations but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a pretty tasty meal. The portion size of the tofu and vegetables was decent and served with a large scoop of white jasmine rice which quickly filled me up. I enjoyed the teriyaki sauce and the assortment of vegetables consisting of mushroom, broccoli, green onions, and red bell peppers although I would have liked a firmer/crispy consistency of the tofu. Besides the slightly steep price I would recommend grabbing a quick bite from Big Bowl if you find yourself in Terminal 5 of O'Hare Airport. read more

Good Dinner in the Airport My wife and I recently flew through Chicago on vacation. Of course, we had to get some dinner, right? We checked out a few options and decided on the Big Bowl since the food looked very appetizing. Well, we were right on our choice. We both got the Orange Chicken and Rice - it was delicious. The chicken was tender, well-seasoned, and complimented by the ginger which added a nice flavor. The portion size was good, but the price ($12), was a bit more that I had expected. If you're traveling through O'Hare in Terminal 5, be sure to check them out - IF you want some good food. read more

Big Bowl is the last thing I would call it. Servings were unacceptably small and I'm not some big ole 'Merican looking to gorge myself. I just want something that reflects the amount of money I paid. And that expectation is even low at an airport. But that's not my biggest gripe. Just responding to the irony of the name. More annoying is that they had no vegetable-tofu dish, no egg rolls, no fried rice, no lo mein noodles and the rice was not jasmine rice, just plain rice. And no beverages at all. This is long after Covid food shortages, to be clear. At an airport terminal where my two choices are this and Burger King when I need to plan for hours around a trip to the airport. read more

Big Bowl was decent airport food, but that's about all it had going for it. I ordered the orange chicken and it was about what I expected from an airport food place. The big issue was how long it took to get my food. I ordered and watched as about a dozen customers got their food before me. I ended up standing there for about twenty-five minutes, while the wait originally looked to be less than five. Highly disappointed with my experience considering that the people who ordered after me both got their food and probably finished eating before I was able to get mine. read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

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On my recent return trip to Phoenix, after spending time in Chicago, I found myself in Terminal 5 waiting for a delayed flight on Frontier Airlines. My nephew and I decided to get some food, as we were hungry, and the airline does not feed much of anything. My nephew got the typical two entree combo with white rice: Orange Chicken Sesame Chicken Me, I got a two entree combo with white rice as follows: Kung Pao Chicken Teriyaki Chicken Given the price, and taking into consideration the location, I was not too impressed. It was very disappointed with the quality, and the price. It left a bad impression. My advice to O'Hare Airport Management, encourage the franchisee to shut down, and assign the slot to someone else. If you want some kind of "fast food" Chinese, see if you can convince Panda Garden to open up instead. At least it is better service. read more

This place is super dirty the employees were shouting to each other the whole time no fried rice, the one girl said when will more be made, and all 5 guys pretty much didn't care and said we can start more now like it was a chore to them Horrible staff so disorganized and we even asked one guy standing around to clean a table so we could eat on clean surface and he said that wasn't his job HORRIBLE !! read more

Big Bowl Chinese Express - Chinese Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

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This big bowl was one of the worst I've been to. I got the Mongolian beef, which was the most expensive, and I ended up with 80% rice , 10% beef, and 10% empty space....and the 10% of beef I got was 9% raw onions. DON'T GO HERE. Worst airport service and food in terminal 5. Wish yelp had an option for 0 stars bc that's what it deserves. read more

I paid $18 for a bowl and a water . The portion sizes are awful. I would call this a snack at best. I had the sesame chicken and brown rice. Sesame chicken had onions that were probably supposed to be cooked but were completely raw and severely undercooked rice. I don't have high expectations for Airport food but this was disappointing. read more

Salty nasty food and poor customer service, the only thing to say about this place is the price, gets orders out of order and opened 20 minutes late... not great for an airport with flights to catch read more

This was not a good place to go in terminal 5 at Chicago O'Hare airport. The staff were nice enough when they helped you, but were too preoccupied with each other to move the service along. The food was sub par to say the least. The tables were dirty and even though there were 6 people working at this small express Asian fusion restaurant, customers had to ask for some thing to wipe down the tables with. It felt very dirty and the food was not very good read more

Thought the food here was A-OK considering the price and the location of this joint. I ordered the orange chicken & sesame chicken with rice and shared it with my mother prior to our flight out to Zurich. It was a decent meal, although a bit salty for my taste. I would say if you need something to eat, and you would like to share a quick meal before a long international flight where you know dinner will be served, big bowl can definitely help satiate that hunger. I would however recommend sampling the fare before ordering, as the staff was more than generous to allow us to try everything before placing a final order. read more