Stone Bowl Grill

Stone bowl is hands down one of my favorite restaurants in the city. I love Korean food and they do it well! The stone bowl bibimbop is EXCELLENT! They have a cool environment with Korean pop music playing in the background and very friendly servers.
I would definitely recommend stopping in to try it out!

I would personally give this place one star but the dumplings were okay. I’m 99% sure this food was microwaves. The noodles look like packaged ramen noodles, and the pork looks like microwaveable bacon. There was brown lettuce in the ramen which was also pretty gross. Bye.

The best Korean food in Milwaukee, though it admittedly doesn’t have much competition. Service is very friendly in my experience. I’ve been three times and will be back again soon, but it isn’t quite up to the «weekly spot» level. Has potential though.

Update and upgrade!
Since my last review, I’ve been back to Stone Bowl numerous of times. Since then, they’ve worked out their microscopic kinks and even improved upon their already good array of cuisine.
They recently added glass stove tops on their tables, which means they officially serve Korean barbecue. I’ve only had their Shabu Shabu and the Classic Bulgogi (beef marinated in Asian pear sauce). Both were delicious, especially the Classic Bulgogi. When I have to describe bulgogi to my friends, I always refer to it as «Korean sweet meat.» The beef was deeply marinated so I could taste the slight sweetness of the pear sauce. The beef was also tender, juicy and ripped easily when I bite into it. Overall, it tasted close to my mom’s and if you’re new to Korean barbecue, I recommend starting out with the bulgogi. Furthermore, if you want to elevate your Korean barbecue experience, don’t forget to ask for some lettuce and fermented soybean paste (ssamjang). Put some rice, bulgogi, kimchi and ssamjang inside a leaf of lettuce, and boom: you have Korean lettuce wraps (ssam or ssambap). Thank me later.
Their Spicy-​Sweet Dumplings and Squid Dolsot (hot stone) Bibimbop are still my favorites. The dumplings have such an enticing flavor because the contrast between the spicy and sweet have created an interesting, yet harmonious effect. If you’re not used to spice, both dishes might be a wee bit intense but nonetheless, the multiplicity of aromas, flavors and textures will blow your mind.
In my previous review, the banchan (side dishes) was really my only complaint. However, it’s been improved tremendously. Their kimchi was perfectly aged. The fish cakes had a good flavor. And the mashed potato salad was excellent. I had to ask for seconds.
I’ve been urging my parents to try Stone Bowl because it has the same owner as Wasabi Sushi Lounge (their favorite restaurant in Wisconsin). Don’t get me wrong: they really want to. They’ve heard nothing but praise from their Korean church friends. However, they said Farwell Avenue is «too young and hip» for them. I might write another update if they do decide to dine here.
Stone Bowl deserves a solid five stars. Even though the ambiance is fun, «hip» and trendy, I see a variety of patrons dine here from young couples to large families. Stone Bowl is a great introduction to contemporary Korean cuisine, and I encourage every one to experience this place. Now go. Go to the literal and metaphorical east side and hop on the Korean wave.

Loved my meal! Service was quick and friendly. I ordered the bibimbap bowl with beef. As the name of the restaurant suggests, it was served in a hot stone bowl that continued to cook the food. My server suggested I stir up the bowl and break the egg. They provide a bottle of that delicious korean sauce on the side so you can add as little or add much as you prefer. The flavor was great and the ingredients were fresh! It was kind of like fried rice! This meal warmed my soul on a cold day! They also serve everyone (?) korean sides. The kimchi was good and u added it to my bowl. The seaweed salad was good too. The potato salad was decent but I wasn’t in the mood. I would love to visit again the next time in in MKE!

Stone Bowl has been on my list to try for a while. I finally made it in and tried the Spicy Ramen.
First we started with the Beef Mandoo steamed dumplings. They were ok, but I expected more flavor in the beef.
My spicy ramen was excellent. It arrived in a stone bowl and the broth was still boiling for several minutes after it arrived. It was not overly spicy where I couldn’t enjoy it, but spicy enough to build and complement the great flavors. The side dishes we received, kimchi, potato salad, seaweed salad, were good, but I wasn’t sure what they went with. We essentially snacked on them as appetizers.
Our server was also very attentive and friendly.
I enjoyed my visit enough that I’d like to go back and try the bibimbop with bulgogi and the kalbi beef.

Trying new food can be intimidating and risky. I have had some brushes with Korean food but not recently and nothing that ever blew my mind — even after a week long stay in Seoul when I was 17, I was least impressed by the food.
So fast forward to last week when it came my turn to pick an adventurous eating destination and I decided to branch out and bring my friend to the Stone Bowl. I was so impressed by the attentive service I could have cared less if the food was good or not – but it was amazing and beyond the expectations I had.
At the beginning of our meal we were brought small side dishes to share and we picked out several other items to try with the friendly advice of our server. She showed us how to take soju bombs and helped us along the way on how to eat the variety of dishes that kept coming out piping hot.
We absolutely had a fantastic evening and can’t wait to return for more stone bowl!

I like the atmosphere in that restaurant, 21^st century decoration attracts youngsters like me. I ordered bibimbop and beef bulgogi. Both dishes are good. My favorite is the bibimbop with variety of vegetables and some meat. Make sure just pick one poultry. I was greedy so I picked octopus bibimbop and had them add beef and tofu. They gave me little bit of each and added $ 6 more to my bill. I’ve learned my lesson. They also gave me side dishes; kimchi, potato salad and I forgot the last dish. The side dish was okay, I’ve had better side dishes at other korean restaurants. Oh, the parking is sometimes hard to find since they don’t have a parking structure, only street parking :(

I think i am a bit spoiled as I have lived in other cities with K-​towns and excellent korean. This spot is good, but the seafood pancake was not as my favorite (and I love seafood pancakes). It was soggy and just not quite right. Bibimbap was great.

I used to live in a Korean-​dense area of the east coast and ate at a lot of amazing Korean restaurants, so I wasn’t sure that Milwaukee would know what it’s doing with a Korean restaurant (having only had like… one before this); but this place is amazing and on par with any coastal Korean restaurant. Stone Bowl has some of the best bibimbop I’ve ever had, and their Dak Gang Jung Chicken wings are to die for. Granted, those are the two things I eat the most there (I’m allergic to seafood and can’t eat kimchi, so I can’t speak to those things), but those two things also keep me coming back at least once a month! They also have great potato salad and wonderful lunch specials. The only downside is the parking if you come on a weekend.
The service is wonderful — the servers are always very attentive and eager to help with the menu — and the ambiance is very warm with a trendy sort of edge. They also have a TV at the bar playing Korean TV shows, which is fun to watch alone or with your friends.

I was excited for korean BBQ given the good reviews but was disappointed. We ordered wings, which were mostly fat and breading covered in sticky sweet sauce. It tasted like cheap chinese food with almost no meat. The pork belly was very bland and the meat was thin and stringy. Squid was very rubbery and tough, hard to even chew. To make the experience worse was the loud Asian rap music in the background. It was so cheesy we were having a hard time not laughing just sitting there listening to it. I would not recommend this place.

I generally don’t get to the east side because of the parking/​traffic but I have been looking at this place for a while and I was craving ramen for a while so I went over. Surprisingly I got parking right in front of the place.
The place was nice looking on the inside with dark woods and light colors. Nice oriental style lights and cool booths to sit in. There is a nice bar with a flat screen. There is a giant wine wall on the back side of the place which goes up to the ceiling, see my pictures.
The menu is all foreign to me because I don’t know what most of it is. I was going to order a ramen that I generally would not and got the spicy sea food ramen.
The ramen comes boiling and bubbling to the table and is a very cool presentation, see my video. I didn’t know what to expect with the spicy sea food ramen and it looked awesome with whole shrimp and assorted shell fish. They should warn that this is a hands on meal because you have to get the seafood out of its shells.
I was given a complementary appetizer which was a tasty pan cake type of thing, see the picture.
The ramen is too hot to eat just to warn you so it needs to cool down a bit. After de shelling the sea food I got to take the first bite and it was really good and the best ramen I have had. My eyes were watering from the spicy and how hot the ramen was. The ramen has a lot of ingredients going on and every thing was very good. The spicy broth was filled with a sea food flavor right down to the last drop and I don’t usually do sea food but I really enjoyed it. My heads was sweating from the spicy hot goodness and it was right on point because it was just what I wanted which was some kick in the ass.
The table has a extra plate which was handy for all the sea food shells, see my picture.
Overall the place rocks with wonderful service and great ramen which was the best I have had from anywhere. I would recommend this place to anyone who likes ramen. Just to mention I did get lunch at first opening so my service expirence may differ from peak times. Even as left overs the next night I really enjoyed the spicy sea food ramen and want to go back. My crave for ramen was totally over better than I expectied and it just hit the spot. With my final thoughts over I will give five stars and really enjoyed my meal.

I’ve been here close to a dozen times now, and every time is different. Some are good, some are bad.
The food overall is pretty solid, my favorite pick would be their seafood sundubu. However, their Bibimbap is always a good pick as well!
But the one thing that really irked me this time is the kimchi. It tasted like it took a shower in a tub of water. It just tasted like old cabbage.
I really hope they up their side dish game, because right now it’s really lacking.
Update: sundubu still good! Kimchi as a side dish seems to have disappeared!

Pretty good and authentic as it gets for Milwaukee. Better than the other ones we went to. They even had Korean beer and soju. Very highly recommended

I really enjoyed stone bowl, very unique place, for Milwaukee. I like the location, pretty busy but there is ample parking, if you are willing to walk a block or two. I had the beef stone bowl, there was a good portion of food, but not enough meat for me. Plenty of rice though. Flavor was off the charts, would have given 5 star if there was more beef in the dish. Price is just north of justifiable, but I know rent must be high.
All and all, if you haven’t been here, you gotta try it out. Next time I’ll order off the chef special or not a bowl. Seeing all the other dishes made my mouth water.

I want to like this place. In fact, I want to love it. But unfortunately, I can’t.
We came in on a Sunday night. We were seated at a dirty table. Yuck. It took our server close to ten minutes to get to us. FAIL. Did I mention it was a Sunday? They weren’t busy. It took forever to get our drinks. And even longer for our food. I ordered the spicy seafood ramen. It was highly lacking any and all seafood.
DO NOT FALL FOR THEIR PICTURES ON INSTAGRAM LIKE I DID. THE FOOD IS NOTHING LIKE THOSE PICTURES. I CALL SHANNANIGANS ON THAT!
I Love Kan Pai. (sister store) but this just missed the mark. I believe in 2^nd chances. I’ll try again..

Spicy Ramen = really spicy and delicious. I want to drink the broth. I appreciate that it actually is spicy. And you can’t get it non-​spicy. It is what it is.
Now that I’ve fallen in love with the ramen, I want to go back and try everything else, since it also looks good. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to say no to the Ramen. It’s quite the catch-​22.
Ramen Ramen Ramen Ramen Ramen Ramen.

Delicious food! I highly recommend this Korean restaurant to anyone who wants to enjoy some Korean dishes.
I love their honey ginger tea!
Recommended dishes (will post up photos);
–Beef Kalbi
–Santeed Pork belly (forgot what the dish was called).
–stir fried udon noodles with combination of beef and seafood.
Oh yes! Don’t forget the side dishes and the fried mandu appetizers as well.

This place is still great but the reason for the one star drop is that 1. service is often awkward/​weird and 2. the prices. Other than that, it’s pretty solid Korean food!
Korean food — especially the more casual dishes like the ddukboki — shouldn’t be so expensive for the portions they are dishing out. For example, an extra $ 3 for half a block of ramen added to your ddukboki? No. Or $ 16 for budae jigae? Hail no. Keep in mind budae jigae is a stew with cheap ingredients like ramen and sausage/​spam. Would I still order these? Sure, because it’s only one of two real options I have in this city.
As for the service, it’s mostly friendly, a little eager if anything, but there have been some odd moments. For example, my friends dishes all came out first, which was fine and told my friends to go ahead and eat. I patiently wait but each minute feels like a lifetime. After a painfully long wait, she comes by with my dish in hand and just holds it in the air and says «aw you look so sad without your food.» ARE YOU KIDDING? Look lady, set the food down and walk away before I bite your arm off. It seemed like she wanted to get some kind of reaction out of me or maybe she was trying to be funny, but I just wasn’t in the mood.
Anyways — I’d still recommend this place. There are some appropriately priced and tasty dishes like their soondubu (soft tofu stew) or naengmyun (buckwheat noodles in a spicy sauce). I also really enjoyed their new Chef Specials, particuarly the Osam bulgogi, which is spicy pork and squid cooked at your table. It comes with some lettuce wraps and they finish it off with rice/​egg/​toppings to make a fried rice with the leftover sauce. It’s a little pricey at $ 27 but it’s easily sharable for two so it’s totally worth it.
I’ll be back for sure — partly because it’s yummy and partly because I have no other options. Hah.

The place: way nicer than I expected based on the appearance from the curb. Crisp, clean, modern feel. Seems like it’d be a nice date night place. Service was great.
The taste: a tofu hot stone bowl was brought to the table still sizzling and crackling. Because it was still cooking. I added some hot sauce and per their recommendation stirred it all up to get mouthfuls of flavorful veggies, rice, eggs and tofu. The bulgogi was a tad sweet but still tasted pretty delicious.
My face: glad that the hubs bought me a taro smoothie with boba for a bday treat. Brunch/​lunch for 2 with 2 smoothies for $ 5.45 each came out to just over $ 30. I’d call this face pleasantly surprised. Also a really good backup for when the wait at Comet Café is just a little too long.