The popular eatery that put them on the map was in the Michelin selection for a month when chefs Eliot Hillis and Seth Parker traded Meats for carbs. Now, less than a year later, their Red Panda Noodle pop-up is rolling in a new 16-foot trailer they’ll debut on Tuesday at Tasty Takeover, the popular weekly food-truck event in Orlando’s Milk District.
With hand-pulled noodles built on a foundation of tradition — then crafted into dishes with the quirky style fans have come to love — Hillis, along with Parker and Red Panda co-owner Liz Bates, is grateful for the following that’s allowed them to blossom so quickly.
“I can’t thank Orlando enough for how quickly we were able to grow in that situation,” Hillis told the Orlando Sentinel. “We went from a concept to a fully-fledged business in a month, and that business was profitable in a month and a half.”
With dishes long in flavor (and sometimes literally, a one-noodle dish can sometimes fill the bowl), the pair aren’t ruling out brick-and-mortar but found the mobile path a better, more expeditious option.
“We didn’t want to wait, we didn’t want to be stuck in a tent anymore and we wanted to be more legitimate and the truck offers a lot of opportunities for us to produce more and do bigger events.”
Fully outfitted with four woks, a pastillator, a deep fryer and four fridges, the team will still be producing in a commissary but on the road, the sky’s the limit.
The Orlando noodle scene is growing of late, with popular new noodle houses buzzing on social threads, but Hillis believes there’s plenty of room.
“We were on the scene doing this before just about everybody, and we have the benefit of being nontraditional, so we’re not locked into anything,” he said.
Red Panda’s flour and dough are entirely traditional, he notes, but after that, all bets are off.
“We make the shapes we think are best for what we’re doing. So, we might have a noodle shape from this prefecture or that small town in China, but we’re not necessarily pairing that with the ingredients they’d usually go with, and we’re not producing them in the same way, either,” Hillis says.
A new vegetarian dish, for example, adds curried cabbage to the mix.
“It sounds Eastern or Asian in some regard, but the way we make it is firmly cemented in Eastern European cooking. We’re not bound by anything, and I think that’s the thing that’s going to help us stay interesting.”
New items, too, like soy-sesame confit pork skewers with burnt scallion and fermented black bean aioli and wings, are rounding out the menu. In fact, says Hillis, Shin Jung fans may find the latter familiar.
“They had the best wings in town. I loved them so much,” he opines. “But they didn’t have them anymore when they reopened. It was exactly what we wanted in a wing, so we just did that.”
Precooked in a soy-sesame base, the wings are deep-fried and dressed in a sticky gochujang-based sauce. You can try ’em on the truck on Tuesday (the queue will likely be formidable, be patient).
For future dates, hit the calendar on the Red Panda Noodle website or follow them on Instagram, where pics are sure to keep this Orlando Sentinel Foodie Award-winning truck on your mind.
“Basically, this is just a continuation of the same thought we’ve been having, which is to be able to offer people interesting food that isn’t already out there,” Hillis said, adding that they’re amid “building an army.”
“We’re hiring right now and looking to get a hold of some good people and keep expanding. Then maybe Seth and I can have a day off once in a while. ”
More info: instagram.com/redpandanoodle
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