Photo by Jon Anderson
JP Holland, the executive chef and operator of the Glass Panda restaurant in The Village at Brock's Gap, shows off a new menu offering — his banhmi Vietnamese sandwich.
Kiran Sunkavalli opened his Glass Panda Asian street food restaurant in The Village at Brock’s Gap in February of last year, but he picked up a new executive chef and operator, JP Holland, in November.
Holland, the former owner of The Fig in Cahaba Heights and Watkins Branch Bourbon and Brasserie in Mountain Brook, came in with a plan to revamp the Glass Panda menu with more authentic Asian dishes.
“A lot of Asian restaurants are kind of sugary,” Holland said. He has researched the dishes and uses authentic ingredients and sauces to make them “absolutely perfect,” he said. “That’s kind of our thing here — to give you a passport to Asia.”
The Glass Panda serves Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese food, with most dishes $20 or under, even though some more “stuffy” restaurants might charge $400 for the same thing, Holland said. “I am really thrilled about being able to give people a true foodie experience without breaking the bank,” he said.
Holland’s father grew up in Thailand, so Asian food is comfort food to him, he said. He also dabbled working in Asian restaurants early in his career, he said. Some of the Glass Panda’s new menu items include Banhmi sandwiches from Vietnam, pad thai and ramen that takes at least three days to cook, he said.
There’s a Sunday brunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. specializing in dumplings and “cocktail bobamosas” and a reservation-only “chef’s passport dinner” once a month on Sunday nights.
For more information, go to glasspandaeats.com.
