Merry's House of Chicken - West Covina

I am a little hesitant to writing this review as it will be a little biased toward the good side since wifey knows owner/friend's with owner's daughter.

So location wise, is it located in a strip mall in West Covina, near the Walnut border. It is a good location for the area, but not so good overall because if you are travelling from afar, it is no where near a freeway. Parking lot space is somewhat inadequate for the strip mall. The restaurant itself is family run, with nice and helpful people. They also have various Indonesian packaged snacks on sale, and previously made Indonesian dessert/snack foods also for sale. They also do some baking here if you are interested in special Indonesian style cakes.

The food:

Their Specialty Fried Chicken - (Ayam Kremesan) - We ordered a full chicken to eat between the 4.5 of us. Of notice, this isn't your steroid injected chicken, this is more what Indonesians call Country Chicken, or what we call Free Range Chickens. They are relatively smaller than what you are used to. The chicken was cooked well, no pink areas on the insides, the meat still moist despite the thinness of the chicken. The star of this is the "kremesan" which is the crunchy flour bits that is sprinkled all over the chicken. This and their awesome spicy sauce (sambal) is golden. 4.5/5 stars

We also ordered an oxtail soup - this one is the one in regular broth. I have actually never had oxtail before so I have no comparison, but the broth was rich and the meat soft and tender. It was tasty overall. 4.5/5 stars

Also on our eat list was the martabak telor - which is like egg pancakes. I have tasted better at other places for this one. Maybe too much onion? or too much scallion? I am not sure what the difference is exactly. 3/5 stars.

We were able to taste clippings off a cake their were making for twins birthday. When they shape the cake, they cut off yummy little clippings. The cake was typical Surabaya layer cake (a yellow and brown layer). Overall good tasting, similar to what I have tasted in the past. 4/5 stars

Martabak Manis/Terang Bulan - this is an Indonesian breakfast/dessert that could be described as an oversized pancake folded into halves with a combination of Nutella or chocolate sprinkles, nuts, cheese, and (sometimes coconut). This one I'm not sure if they made it or someone else was selling their wares in the store, but it was slightly overdone (slight bitter taste in the cake). 3/5 stars

Prices are a steal compared to other Indonesian places, but in general portions reflect those prices.

Overall 4/5 stars, if you want are itching to be exotic and try Indonesian food, this is authentic and I would recommend giving it a try.

Indo Kitchen Alhambra

Ate with my in-laws here last night. I have eaten here before in the past twice, and expected my taste buds to come alive! This was one of the better Indonesian food places last I ate here 3 years ago or so.

Well, either things have changed, or its just on a bad night. When we arrived there was one other medium sized party there. We were seated after they cleaned some tables. Parking was amazingly plentiful in this downtown Alhambra area. There was street parking as well as a separate lot in the back.

This place is better for small to medium group sizes, any larger and you won't fit, there is a sitting capacity of about 25 here.

So what did we have?

Wifey was craving some cancun belacan, I have previously reviewed that one and also martabak telor.
The martabak telor was the only worthwhile dish today. It was crisp and tasty, served with pickled vegetables, which were not that sour nor spicy.

The kangkung belacan looked good, but was not where near as spicy nor rich with shrimp paste as we usually like it.

We also had:

Spicy Tripe - this one looked good also, with jalapenos and reddish spicy looking sauce, but this also was not spicy at all and the tripe was a little too soggy.

Spicy Salty Fish Fried rice - not spicy, but otherwise tasted like regular fried rice.

Fried Chicken with Kremes - (little crunchy crumbs) the crumbs were pretty good, the chicken was decent, well cooked.

Fried Frog Legs in Butter sauce - this was similar to before, but I guess wifey was not craving the slight "sea" taste mixed in with chicken taste of frog legs, but I enjoyed this dish. The amusing part was the sauce and oil it was cooked in, matched the color of the plate, making for an interesting splash on several members of our party.

Maybe if this place hadn't been so good in the past and we didn't have expectations, I would squeeze a 3.5 out of the food and dining experience, but given the quality in the past, I am only giving it 3 stars for this visit.