Back in 2019, when I took my wife to New York City for our tenth anniversary, one of the many delicious restaurant meals I had was takeout from Xi’an Famous Foods, a casual restaurant specializing in hand-ripped biang biang noodles and spicy braised meats from the city of Xi’an in northwestern China. It was like no other style of Chinese food I’ve ever had before, and I’ve been saying for years that even with Orlando’s breadth and depth of various regional Chinese cuisines, we have desperately needed a place like that. Well, we finally have one!
SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles (https://www.instagram.com/slap.noodles.usa) opened back in November 2025, at 6532 Carrier Dr Ste B, Orlando, FL 32819, right off International Drive, a little north of Sand Lake Road. It has been a popular destination ever since, with influencers aplenty sharing videos of chefs slapping and stretching dough to make perfectly long, chewy noodles from scratch and diners slurping them up. I’ve been wanting to try it ever since it opened, and I finally made it over there yesterday with my best friend, after surviving yet another MegaCon. (We went to The Whiskey two years ago and Fogo de Chao, which I somehow still haven’t reviewed, last year.)
I’ve been so good lately about not drinking my calories, but I figured our food would be spicy, so I treated myself to a sweet drink from SLAP!’s beverage cooler, this interesting-looking honey pomelo drink. After I chose it, I found a small English language label on the back that described it as honey grapefruit tea. It was so sweet and refreshing and delicious, and I loved it, especially as a nice treat after a grueling day. 
It was way too hot for bowls of soup, so my friend and I both chose chili SLAP! noodle bowls, sans soup. He got the signature three-way chili SLAP! noodles, which we learned was a combination of three of their other bowls that can be ordered separately: sliced pork, tomato and egg, and vegetable (which included cubed potatoes, celery, and carrots at the bottom. They also included bok choy, bean sprouts, and lots of chili oil and chili powder. It looks fiery, but believe it or not, it was a lot milder than it looks. There were a bunch of those perfectly al dente biang biang noodles under there, don’t worry!
I got the beef short rib chili SLAP! noodles (no soup for me either), because short ribs are up there with oxtails and lamb shanks as rich, flavorful, unctuous cuts of meat I have a hard time turning down. It has the same kind of seasoning and also included bok choy (which I like) and bean sprouts (which I don’t care for, so I’ll know to ask them to hold the bean sprouts on future visits). I loved that they included a pair of kitchen shears for cutting the short rib, which I wish more restaurants would give you. A few well-placed snips separated all the tender meat from the giant bone, and a few more cuts turned it into bite-sized pieces. I got two meals out of this giant portion, which I’m getting so much better at. 
I forgot to get a good picture of the actual hand-ripped biang biang noodles at the restaurant, but here they are in my leftovers, back at home. At the restaurant, we only ate with chopsticks. These noodles are awe-inspiring, and the chili seasoning is addictive. I suspect these dishes would still be too spicy for my wife, parents, brother, and in-laws, who hate anything beyond “mild,” but I think most people will find the taste pleasant and the spicy level nowhere close to overwhelming. 
By the way, watch how you dress at SLAP!, because it is too easy to splatter a good shirt with that chili oil. I’ve been wearing the same beloved shirt to comic book conventions for 25 years to pose for pictures with comic writers and artists, a running gag that only I appreciate. Luckily, I had the foresight to pack an expendable T-shirt to change into when we got to the restaurant to protect The Shirt.
I was also excited to try one of the “crispy pancake” sandwiches at SLAP!, and I went with cumin lamb. Lamb is probably my favorite protein of all time (not including cured Italian meats), and I still remember the spicy cumin lamb “burger” I got at Xi’an Famous Foods in 2019. In that earlier review, I described it as being served on “a crispy flatbread bun that was like a cross between a pita and an English muffin, in terms of texture.” Here at SLAP!, the flavorful lamb was served on roujiamao, which is more like a flaky paratha or roti, a flatbread I’ve described many times as being the love child of a croissant and a flour tortilla. This roujiamao was much flakier, with more crispy layers, than the typical roti you may have had at Hawkers Asian Street Fare (which you can also buy frozen, as I suspect Hawkers does). This didn’t have that rich, buttery flavor either, but it complimented the cumin lamb very well, and it was fun to eat it. 
My friend and I each took a few bites, and we still had some left over that I finished for lunch today. This was a hit, and you can also order the crispy pancakes with braised beef or braised pork. Next time! And yes, there will be a next time. 
Finally, we also tried some skewers, because we know how to party, and how often will be able to make it back here? It’s across town from me, and my dude lives in Miami! Homestead, actually! All the skewers at SLAP! are served in orders of four for a very reasonable $5.99 each, but you can’t mix and match. That’s how we ended up with a dozen skewers. The four on the left are Chinese sausage, which was both of our favorites. They were grilled and coated with the same chili spice blend, but they weren’t like the chewy and slightly sweet lap cheong I expected, which I love in fried rice.
The four skewers in the middle are beef, which were also grilled and coated with the same chili spicy powder. They were chewy and not terribly tender, and not juicy at all, but at least they tasted good. The four crispy chicken skewers on the right were disappointing, though. My friend was spot-on when he called them “basic.” I’ve had spicy chicken nuggets from Wendy’s with more flavor, so at least I know to skip them on future visits. The sauce on the right side that looks like it’s about to spill (we didn’t let that happen) was reminiscent of Thai sweet chili sauce, but not nearly as sticky or sweet. That sauce and the chili spice on the left helped make the crispy chicken skewers somewhat more interesting, but I’d still order something else next time. Maybe an order of dumplings, which you can get with lamb, beef and onion, pork and cabbage, or pork, shrimp, and chive.
Vegetarians, there aren’t a ton of options for you at this meat-centric restaurant, but you can safely get the vegetable chili SLAP! noodles, vegetable noodle soup, and a couple of different skewers: enoki mushrooms with tofu skin, cilantro with tofu skin, or “fish tofu,” which I’m assuming is tofu reminiscent of fish, and and not a combination of fish and tofu. If you are ovo-vegetarians, you could also do the tomato and egg chili SLAP! noodles or tomato and egg noodle soup.
And since I always check (on behalf of my wife), there are a few half-booths along the side wall at SLAP!, in addition to plenty of tables. Napkin dispensers hang from the ceiling above each table, which you’ll appreciate due to needing a lot of napkins for meals like this, and also for the space they save on the tabletops. (Short people, your mileage may vary).
SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles is definitely worth all the hype. I would have liked to get there sooner, but better late than never. Now I look forward to returning, but I wanted to publish this review as soon as possible, for the handful of you out there who haven’t already jumped on the bandwagon. It’s another treasure for Orlando, especially when the options along International Drive are so chain-centric. As if there was any doubt, SLAP! slaps.
The Saboscrivner 