THE MIXER

Americana-themed Taiwanese food for the red-eye set? Only in the Valley.

By Cindy Chang, Special to The Times

Authentic Taiwanese food is so plentiful in the San Gabriel Valley that immigrants from that culinarily rich island hardly have a chance to feel homesick.

What the Sinicized parts of the Valley have always lacked is night life reminiscent of Taipei's rollicking basement jazz hangouts, bass-thumping dance clubs and country-style pubs. Though the mini-malls of Koreatown are dense with distinctively Korean clubs and bars, Alhambra and San Gabriel revert to their suburban roots after-hours, with only the scattered karaoke joint or hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving xiao ye or midnight snacks.

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Lately, expats have converged on a Taiwanese pub called Indian, which opened a year ago on a sparsely developed stretch of San Gabriel Boulevard.

With its rustic wood tables, cheap pitchers of beer and superb Taiwanese pub food, Indian is a place to hang out until the wee hours.

Owners Su Yu Feng Yu and her husband, Wen Tiung Yu, modeled Indian after a Taipei pub of the same name, with similar Native American tchotchkes and thick logs embedded in the walls for a campground atmosphere. For anyone who has been to Taiwan, the place feels genuine, offering home-style food as well as a familial coziness particular to the Taiwanese.

On Friday and Saturday nights, Indian draws clusters of young men with dyed brown hair and head-to-toe black outfits, gaggles of sleek-haired girls and rowdy groups of fortysomethings. On weeknights, the hip young Taiwanese crowd shares the restaurant with white-haired grandmothers and families. The lingua franca at Indian is Taiwanese-inflected Mandarin. Middle-aged men with mainland Chinese brogues can also be heard discussing the merits of the classic Taiwanese dish three-flavored chicken, and on a recent Saturday night, a Cantonese-speaking group played a game of dice at ear-splitting volume. Waitresses, who wear headbands with a feather jauntily tucked in, have no problem understanding orders given in English.

Indian's deep-fried morsels — chicken, oysters, mushrooms, pork intestines — hardly deserve to be put in the same category as the lackluster French fries or calamari served at many American bars. The grilled corn, lightly tinged with barbecue flavor, is a favorite. Liberal use of basil is a hallmark of Taiwanese cooking, and Indian offers a long list of basil-laden dishes, including stir-fried clams and duck tongue.

Is Indian at the forefront of a trend? A place called Native in downtown Arcadia has similar Native American kitsch and serves three-flavored chicken and grilled odorous tofu. Yummy in Rowland Heights feels like a K-town bar but has a lengthy menu of fried Taiwanese snacks and noodle soups.

Indian

Where: 633 S. San Gabriel Blvd., Suite 105, San Gabriel

When: 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday; 6 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday

Price: pitchers $7.99 to $12; grilled corn $2.50; three-flavored sauce with chicken in pot $7.99

Info: (626) 287-0688