Legal Sea Foods in Boston

Kendall restaurant lobby

Trip Taken: 2010

One of the definitive things that my brother and I wanted to do was to eat seafood in Boston. It’s close to the ocean, it’s one of the historic port cities of America, and who doesn’t like seafood? I looked up a lot of seafood restaurants in Boston and the one name that came up time and time again was Legal Sea Foods. Yelp said go there. Wikitravel said go there. So we had to go there. There were a lot of different locations but we decided on the MIT Kendall Square location. We wanted to visit the two big universities in the Boston/Cambridge.

Clam Chowder

Clam chowder

So I am here in New England and in the ‘best seafood’ restaurant in Boston, I have to order clam chowder. It was a no brainer. My brother and I both ordered a bowl of the six dollar soup. It came with oyster crackers and some fresh pepper if you would like. Our waiter was so glib when he offered us the pepper. Ok, seriously. I am paying six bucks for a bowl of soup and nineteen bucks for my entree. I deserve a little more attention. What a fucking joke.

As for the flavor of the chowder, it was good. As good as the best I have had in Pismo Beach or my place in Berkeley. The clams were fresh and the chowder was a nice creamy consistency. Oyster crackers were… well… oyster crackers.

Portugese Seafood Stew

Portugese Seafood Stew

The Portugese Seafood Stew looked fantastic. My brother ordered a tuna melt sandwich so I didn’t really pay much attention to his food. My stew contained buttered toast, mussels, clams, and rock cod. The stew was very bright with flavors of tomato, citrus, and parsley.

It was actually super good with the bread as dip. I think I even asked for extra bread just so I can soak up all the stew and not leave a single drop. The shellfish were cooked to the correct consistency. However, the fish was either overcooked or frozen for too long. The fish wasn’t flaky like a fresh fish should be. Fortunately, it didn’t have that strong fish flavor you get from bad seafood.

Legal Sea Foods was an okay experience but I don’t think I would go back. The surly waiter and the high prices trump the quality of the food, which you can actually get elsewhere.

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