Legend Bar & Restaurant
“I am a huge fan of Sichuan food and this is one of the best, if not the best in the city.”
“I tried the vietnamese rice roll, dan dan mein, and sauteed loofah all were yummy!”
“It shows up bathed in hot chili oil, studded with chili peppers and peppercorns and heaped with ground chili.”
Legend Bar & Restaurant
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Stopped by on a Sunday and were pleased to find that they have a lunch special regardless of day. Hubby got the general tso's chicken, I got the mapo tofu. We also tried the dan dan noodles and the scallion pancakes. Nice service, lots of room, very clean, no wait, but only average food.
Fresh and flavorful food, plenty of options, generous portions, reasonable prices.
This is a must-try Szechaun restaurant in the Chelsea/Village area. The place is quite large so it's usually easy to get a table even during peak times. The service is lackluster and the staff is not very helpful or attentive.
The menu is pretty authentic and you'll find some interesting items to choose from. Get adventurous! There's also a secret hot pot menu for 'real' Chinese people that may be worth trying if you're with a group and willing to cook your own food.
This isn't my favorite Szechuan restaurant, but it is…my least favorite Szechuan restaurant.
I moved right around the corner last year, and as I passed by on weekends, the place always seemed so full of people and bustling, which made me really excited. Perhaps I set my expectations too high, because after dining in with my parents on a Saturday lunch, everything we ate was just not good. Beef tendons were way too overgreased, and the eggplant and seafood casserole was way overcooked and mushy. The chengdu diced chicken was actually decent, but it was mostly peppers than meat, which was very disappointing.
Service was decent, but very unresponsive near the end of the meal, and it took about 15 minutes to get the check. Given that the restaurant was more or less empty, it was confusing. Also, we were seated in the corner, far away from the front, and the leather from booth seating for our table had been ripped and replaced with duct tape. Upholstery is expensive, I get it, but it's not a good look, when the seating is legitimately uncomfortable. With the prices they're charging, you'd think that they could afford to replace it.
Afterwards, I decided to give Legend another try for takeout, focusing on more standard dishes like dan dan noodles and string beans, as well as the vietnamese banh mi. Hard to mess that up, right? The dan dan noodles and string beans were both very mushy, and the banh mi was overtoasted and the insides were dry, even for my tastes. Not only that, it took a 45 minutes for them to prepare it, and I was sitting in their restaurant for about 30 minutes. I get that it's busy during the lunch hour, but it's not like we were ordering very intricate dishes, by any means. Woof.
The time you might be able to get a good value is for lunch, but I think Grand Sichuan Eastern or even Hot Sichuan are much better for lunch specials, mostly because they give more food and have more variety. Heck, I would even pay the delivery fees for Han Dynasty than go to Legend. The crowds of people on Friday nights still confuse me, so maybe I'm missing something? Nonetheless, I think I've given up trying to give Legend a chance to redeem itself.
Absolutely shocked at how good the food was here… I've read some of the other reviews so maybe just maybe we got lucky or they were having a really good day. I could definitely see that given the size of their menu…
First- if you order Thai or Vietnamese food from this Szechaun restaurant then you have no one to blame but yourself if you don't like the food.
There are way too many items on their menu for everything to be good (doubt if one chef could master all the specialties of the huge Sichaun province alone, let alone multiple countries). We stuck to a handful that were recommended by the staff and the Chengdu dishes which I'm assuming is where the chef or owners are from.
I've had many, many different versions of dandan noodles (which is not a favorite dish of mine by the way) but this one ("Chen-Du" style) was my favorite. Totally loved it.
The cold, spicy beef tendon was absolutely perfect- just spicy enough to warm you up but without the tingly taste in your mouth and the uncomfortable burn.
The Chen-Du pork dumplings in spicy oil were tasty, but there wasn't enough pork and the dumpling was too thick. Still enjoyed this dish but it was not my favorite.
Noodle soup with preserved vegetable and shredded chicken- WONDERFUL. This is a soup I could eat every day. Granted I love that sour vegetable taste in just about anything, but I think this broth was so delicate and the noodles so flavorful (and plentiful) that this dish was special. Not a lot of chicken here but it didn't need it.
We also ordered stir-fried pea tendril in a garlic sauce. I've had this a hundred different times probably in a hundred different restaurants. This wasn't the freshest (it's winter after all) but it was the best I've had. It had a really interesting taste that pushed things to the next level.
Finally, the tea-smoked duck (Zhangcha duck)… I was once told by a Chinese native from ChengDu that this was a dish made for Americans… ridiculous, as if Americans prefer roast duck (plus I've had this dish in China and Hong Kong). Case-in-point my dining partner didn't like it because it tasted over-processed. As for me I haven't had this dish, this good in many years. Wasn't overcooked at all which is usually the problem. Totally successful.
Top this off with a $5 lychee martini or two (or three… happy hour every day until 8PM!) and the fact that this place is is my 'hood and maybe you can understand my excitement.
Not the cleanest place and we didn't eat in the basement, but the service was quite good. Hopefully we didn't just catch them on their one good day. We'll keep you posted…
I ordered delivery from Legend and it came fairly quickly. The dan dan noodles I received were some of the worst I've ever had. The noodles were mushy and there wasn't anywhere near enough sauce. They were somewhat bland and hardly spicy. The double cooked pork I had was great and probably the best I've had under $8 and possibly at any price. It was just the right level of spicy with a good amount of meat and leeks and was legit pork belly, not that shredded stuff cheap places usually try to give you. I'd be scared to order the dan dan noodles again though perhaps they're better when eating in. I will definitively be ordering the twice cooked pork again, I honestly could not stop eating it.
Pretty decent. Just that, could you not order anything cooked with ketchup? That's not really Chinese food. Really not Chinese food.
No frills service and dated decor but not a bad deal for all-you-can-eat hot pot. Ingredients are pretty fresh, with a large variety to choose from. Some I'd never thought of before for hot pot, such as spam and pumpkin, but ended up turning out really well! The upstairs area has a table with self-serve and mix spread of sauces, toppings and other condiments, which was a bit of a pain if you are seated downstairs, but gets the job done I guess. Also, I believe this is one of those places that makes you eat all that you order (so that you don't abuse the all you can eat policy).
Basically very utilitarian hot pot experience, but the end result was delicious nevertheless.
A coworker introduced me to this place and I was hooked! The prices for Sczechuan is standard for authentic Chinese dinner but it was still on the pricier side. We were impressed with their soupy pork dumplings, although without the napa cabbage, the wrapping rips and that yummy, golden juice spills out 🙁 The chengdu fish soup with chilies and pickled veggies is so amazeballs but spicy! The fish is tilapia and I don't know how I feel about eating that in the near future but for what it was worth, a good piping hot satiating bowl. We also ordered the cold sauced eggplant to cool our palette down. I brought the hubs at a later time and he ordered spicy cashew chili chicken, which at first we weren't too sure about, then with a slow burn, really took to it! Great local Chinese smack rt in Chelsea!