Prata House — Restaurant in West Covina

I seldom leave one or two star reviews. When I do it’s merited. I’ve spent 30 years in food service and running fine dining restaurants. So I think I leave pretty fair and balanced reviews. I came here with a pretty open mind. I know it’s not fast food but also not fine dining. I was pretty disappointed. Overall the two redeeming qualities were 1. It was super clean inside and appealing in terms of decor. And 2. the garlic prata bread was hot fresh and delicious. Even if it did come at the very end of the meal when it was almost kind of pointless. In summary: We came at 7:10 and watched the server turn away a diner a mere 10-15 minutes later. They don’t close till 8. This is bad business. If you’re so concerned about getting out right when you close at 8 then post your closing time at 7:30. If I was that guy I would never come back. It’s not like they were dead, they had two other dining families besides us who basically just arrived. Where to start with the food. It just wasn’t very good at all. First of all it took forever. It’s like they have one person back there cooking who makes one plate at a time. We were three people and ordered 2 dishes and one noodle so that we can all share. They brought the dishes out one at a time with like 15 minute increments in between. The bread came near the end. The portions were weird. We got a plate with rice on 1/2 and what looks like a big scoop of sauce with some ingredients in it on the other. Certainly not like a full size portion. I ordered Indian chai tea and it took forever to get it. I had to ask three times. Does it take half an hour to make one cup of tea? No. The tamarind sauce was watery and had a weird sour taste to it. The curry sauce on our mushroom curry, the vegan vegetable dish and the sauce with the garlic prata all looked and tasted like the exact same yellow curry even though they were described differently. Only ok.. samosas were OK but cold inside. I grew up eating Dutch Indonesian and Malaysian food and have been an Indian food fanatic for 25 years so I'm super familiar with the food. This fell short. The service just kind of sucked. I don’t know if she was shy, inexperienced or didn’t really care but we didn’t get really greeted or seated when we came in, when she refilled water for one person she didn’t bother refilling for the rest of us, everything took forever to get and she never followed up with getting things we asked for till we asked two or three times, turned away people before they were closed, and at the end when she brought our bill before we asked for it we gave her the credit card she walked away and made us go up to the register to pay instead of just taking it with her. She never upsold or offered us any dessert or cappuccinos or any specialty items on their menu. She could’ve gotten a lot more money out of us, both in sales and tip. It's a bummer because this place came recommended. But I'll be sticking with Bhanu for my local...

I was very impressed reading the menu, and the interiors of the restaurant. Kudos to the owner and the chef who worked on the creating not just great ambience but also a wide variety of Indian food on the menu which spuns across different cuisines of South Asia.

We ordered the following dishes,

Mutton Biryani, Chicken Mutabbaq, Butter Chicken Masala.

Mutton Biryani - The caption underneath of this dish on the menu was, "slow cooked south indian style goat meat biryani". This is such misleading information for the "biryani" that was served. I have asked the gentleman who was helping us with the menu if it was a dum biryani and he said yes. While we were super hungry waiting for the food to arrive, and I took the first bite of it, mutton biryani took away all the excitement I had for the place and for the food. The meat was chewy and undercooked while the spices were overpowering. Goat/lamb meat are gamey and hard, thus needs to be cooked right. This dish is just goat curry topped with flavored rice. (please refer to the picture I posted) However, the rice was very well cooked and flavorous but in no way compliments the meat curry beneath which was full of gravy that creates such a disharmony of two different flavors of separately cooked dishes yet being served as one.

Chicken Mutabbaq - I would care less for this one as it was just a version of paratha, it looked awesome with egg and chicken stuffing while completely lacked the seasoning.

Butter Chicken Masala - After the disappointment from the first two dishes, butter chicken was the winner of everything that we had at the prata house. The sauce was subtle and compliments the...

When I first found out about this place, I told my husband and the first thing he asked was "Do they serve Maggi goreng (fried Maggi noodles)?". I checked their menu, and unfortunately they did not. But we still wanted to try it as we really missed the Muslim Indian food in Malaysia (that's where we're from), and this is as close as it gets.

We ordered the chicken briyani, the ghee dosa, and my husband got the mee goreng (fried noodles). Our server mentioned that they were out of the regular yellow noodles, and if it was okay that they used the Maggi noodles instead. My husband said yes like three times! He got his wish for Maggi goreng now! We also ordered the hot masala chai and the hot Madras coffee, and they were nothing short of amazing. The ghee dosa was crispy, with coconut & tomato chutneys, and curry dipping sauces. My husbands' Maggi goreng came with noodles, eggs, tomatoes, bean sprouts, and veggies. The chicken briyani was also a huge portion with a whole chicken leg and a boiled egg, with extra chicken curry for pouring over the rice. In short, we enjoyed every bit of our meal and would definitely be coming back for more!

They also have quite a number of prata selections on the menu, including goat and chicken murtabak. Oh, and if beer is your thing, they have a few decent selections on tap. Thank you Prata House, we're definitely going to be regulars...