indra thai restaurant (glendale)

indra thai restaurant
517 south verdugo road
glendale, ca 91205
(818 ) 247-3176

i love thai food, and having read some of the four stars reviews on yelp, i had added it to my to-try list some time ago. my friend and i had passed by it a couple times when we were in the glendale area. but tonight, after dropping by a gallery in the area to pick up my painting, and hanging out abit at the americana, we decided to check out indra thai for dinner. we arrived shortly after 5pm. parking is easily available within the complex lot. through the window, it doesn’t look quite attractive, but there were already about five table full of customers enjoying an early dinner, and that usually is a fairly good sign. we headed in. the first thing we noticed is the over-the-counter thai snack available as take-out (much like food court, panda express counter setup). there were fried bananas, fried spicy chicken, fried fish with spicy sauce, curries dishes, and couple of thai snacks. they all look pretty good, so i was happy and looking forward to our dinner. :)

after about 30 seconds standing at the entrance area, we were greeted and escorted to our table with the menus. skimming through the entire menu, we noticed there are alot of noodle dishes, and not many of my favorite thai dishes are available. the dishes are fairly priced, but the fish dishes i was interested in were marked as “m.p.” (market price), the server, who speaks pretty fluent english (contrary to few of the reviews i read about them not speaking english), was very friendly and explained that it would depend on the size of the fish, but should be about $15. so, i chose #52 on the menu, which is stated as “fried fish w/kra pow sauce, whole fish deep fried until golden & topped w/spicy kra pow sauce prepared w/mint leaves & minced garlic”. my friend chose #75 which is “pad see eew, flat noodles, broccoli, scrambled egg, & choice of chicken, beef, pork stir fried in soy bean sauce” priced at $6.95. he asked for pork. he also ordered #6, the “satay, marinated in spicy curry & skewed on the stick, this indonesian cuisine has been modified w/a thai twist. served w/ peanut sauce & cucumber salad. choice of chicken or beef”. my friend asked if we could have it half chicken and half beef (which many restaurants would’ve accommodated this request), but the server said no, they can’t do “since all the satay were pre-packaged and prepared already”, whatever that means. with a tad bit of disappointment, he went with the chicken satay. she offered if we would like a bowl of rice and naturally we said yes (but thought to ourselves that the steamed jasmine white rice was supposed to come with the fish dish as stated on the menu?) anyway, i have a habit of ordering a glass of thai ice tea the first time i dine in any thai restaurant, so no difference this time. they called theirs “indra thai ice tea” priced at $1.50. ;) overloaded with the usual crushed ice which makes the taste abit diluted, but i like that the milk is not overwhelming which is nice and not too sweet.

satay as appetizer came first. the chicken meat was nicely done (no burnt corners), the peanut sauce is abit too diluted but still flavorful, and the cucumber salad was sweetly good. :)

next, the pad see eew was an instant disappointment for my friend. the flat noodle was quite dry and not ‘chewy’ but with a ‘soggy’ texture. i don’t think they served us broccoli, but the veggie was overcooked and ‘old’, and the scrambled egg had a weird texture to it.

our fish dish arrived in two ‘small’ pieces. i feel so bad saying this, but again, abit of a disappointment. the pompano wasn’t deep fried long enough, texture of abit ‘lumpy’, and it was kinda barely warm when served to us. the kra pow sauce was very blended, but since i really love fish, we did finish this dish.

the best part of the meal ought to be the fried bananas. an order came with six pieces, and it was yummily crunchy. :)

when the check came, we noticed they charged an extra $1.25 for the one-person bowl of rice they served us with.  the menu, however, did state that the fish entree is “served w/ steamed jasmine white rice”.  somehow we forgot to ask them about it and paid that puzzling extra $1.25?  before we left, i stopped by the counter for a to-go order of the spicy sliced fried catfish priced at $7.95 (i’ll blog about it on a separate entry.)  though it’s a very friendly and cozy environment, and the food wasn’t all that bad, my friend isn’t too keen to come back again, but with the steady traffic of customers coming in and leaving happy (and with all the other positive yelp reviews), i would want to come back to try the other dishes. :)