We needed somewhere for a quick lunch on the way to a Sunday outing in the mountains, and knew that Glendale was known for Armenian food, which my wife had a yen for. The first pick from the listings on Google Maps proved to be closed all day, so more or less at random we opted for Adana. When Wayz announced that we had “arrived at our destination” in the middle of a wasteland, we almost gave up trying to find it, but we persevered… and even on the second go almost missed it, because Adana’s frontage is discreet to the point of invisibility on a particularly barren stretch of San Fernando Road. Once inside we were a little disconcerted to find the menu more pan-Middle Eastern than specifically Armenian, but as time was getting short we stayed and went for a dish of mixed appetizers – stuffed grape leaves, falafel, hummus, Shirazi salad, rice and something very piquant made with stewed red peppers – plus an extra order of Kashk-e-Bademjan (fried eggplant in condensed yogurt topped with fried onions and mint). The appetizers were uniformly fresh and as good as we’ve had anywhere, but the eggplant dish was just sensational – one of those times when you encounter a flavor combination you never knew existed and now never want it to end. I actually felt guilty that we had to stop at appetizers and leave quickly so as not to be late at the destination.
Just a week later there was another event in Glendale, so this time we allowed plenty of time to try Adana’s main courses. We weren’t disappointed – my wife’s Khoresh Bademjan was thick with tender beef, eggplant, and split peas in tomato sauce, topped with a liberal scattering of french fries, and served with rice and a choice of two other sides from hummus, yogurt cucumber, pickle, barbecued tomato, Persian salad – all unsurprisingly adding up to enough spare to take home for a decent-sized meal the next day. My three succulent slabs of salmon, just blackened and spicy enough to add to and enhance the flavor of the fish without flattening it completely, was similarly accompanied. Just marvelous…