Description
Indo Café is a conundrum: a user-friendly Indonesian restaurant whose dishes are among the most challenging in town; a gentrified place whose ingredient obsessions and strict adherence to halal make the flavors probably more "authentic'' than the stripped-down cafés serving a more orthodox clientele. With its plush bench seats, dark wood, antique cabinets, a burbling urn-fountain and soft gamelan music, the café seems like the type of upscale (though not expensive) gado-gado joint you might expect to see in Berkeley or Cambridge but not necessarily in L.A. The fried chicken, cooked with coconut water and brown sugar before its final trip through oil, is particularly good here, with skin as crisp and fine as the top of a crème brûlée and flesh almost turgid with juice, and garnished with a drift of crisp, garlicky debris. The chicken is at its best as ayam penyet, served in a heavy stone vessel with chile sambal and a double helping of sliced cucumber. If you want a peanutty gado-gado salad, fried tempeh or a plate of bakmi goreng like the one you may have had 20 times during the month you spent on the beach in Bali, they're here, too. If you're feeling sentimental, there is a superb version of the traditional wedding rice, nasi kuning, stained bright yellow with turmeric, and garnished with fried chicken, stewed beef and betel-nut chips. Afterward, try an avocado smoothie. See full review.
