Call ahead to put name on wait list. Smoking, nonsmoking sections.
Credit cards: All major.
Access: Fully accessible.
LEGAL C BAR
27 Columbus Ave., Boston
(At the Statler Building)
(617) 426-5566
Restaurant reviewed 06/02/97 by Alison Arnett
Legal Sea Foods is by now an empire in three states and Washington, with a definite formula. One could land in any of the locations from Peabody to Natick to the Prudential Center in Boston and know immediately that this was a Legal and pretty much how the menu will read.
Legal C Bar, open about four months, breaks the mold.
The difference is noticeable when one walks in. Soft blues, aquas and pinks, a wall of old Hemingway-esque fishing photos, revolving fans, waitresses in short shorts carrying rum drinks. It doesn't look like the Legal next door. And the menu, with dishes such as callaloo (an okra, crab and spinach soup) and acra (salt cod cakes) doesn't sound like Legal either. Who would have thought of Legal venturing into Caribbean cuisine, rare in Boston, even in the country?
But Jasper White, who took over as executive chef of Legal a little over a year ago, explains the choice was natural. ``The idea came to me eating staff dinners (those behind-the-scenes meals cooks prepare to feed the workers before starting the evening service),'' White said in a phone interview. ``I'm eating it thinking `this is pretty darn good.' '' Legal has several hundred employees who are originally from the Caribbean, White said, so Caribbean food became the impetus for Legal's first branching out from its broad-based seafood theme.
In another break from the mold, Legal C Bar has a chef named on the menu, Nouvilus Petit Frere, a Haitian native who has been with Legal for 17 years.
The best touches of Caribbean - lots of citrus tones, plenty of fruit, spices that are distinctive without being searing except in some Jamaican-style preparations) - show up in many of Petit Frere's dishes. Scallop ceviche is a perfect appetizer, with pristine scallops cured with lots of lime juice, tender yet resistant to the bite, giving the dish a sushi-like quality with the advantages of cooking. A cabbage and red pepper slaw, spiced with chilies, is a good foil for the scallops along with sections of grapefruit. Peel and eat shrimp is fragrant with a spice mixture heavy on bay leaf and punched up with a little vinegar. Bajan curried beef turnovers are on the delicate side of spicy, but perked up with a dollop of the hot sauces offered on every table.
The house salad is a sparkling bibb and red grapefruit combination with soothing chunks of avocado and a slightly sweet dressing. It pops up on many other plates as does the delicious slaw.
Like the mainstream Legals, the C Bar takes good care of simply prepared seafood. Grilled salmon with a light dusting of cumin, cinammon, red chilies and clove is moist and flavorful. ``Pan do'' fish fillets, so-called because the whole dish can be prepared in one pan, are also perfectly done. And a more elaborate dish, king mackerel in a Creole sauce of tomatoes, onions and peppers, is also tasty. Simply prepared pork chops and wonderfully spicy Jamaican jerked chicken are other highlights.
I liked the curried shrimp in a sauce that sounded at first reading too sweet but instead was nicely modulated. The deviled crab backs, large shells full of a spicy crab mixture, also were delicious, although for $19.95, one hungered for another one on the plate.
However, some of the more unusual dishes needed more punch. Callaloo, the soupy stew popular in several Caribbean countries, was thick and rather gummy with its mixture of crab, okra, coconut milk and spinach. The color was a darkish green and the spinach, used instead of dasheen leaves, made unsightly strings when one lifted up the soup spoon. Acra, similar to crab cakes, had a lively taste but the texture was rubbery.
Creole ratatouille, which accompanied several main courses, was limp and a little soggy, as though it had been too long in steam trays. The rice and beans with other dishes had the same quality of being mass-produced. And though yucca, here smashed, is a favorite in the Caribbean and South America, I have my doubts about it sweeping the States in the same way as mashed potatoes. It's just too sticky, like eating school paste.
Americans have fallen in love with coconut and the coconut milk and flecks of coconut on the rolls are a brilliant touch. These are a good example of Legal's talented pastry chef Rick Katz, who has substantially upgraded Legal's baked goods. Coconut-lime cake was also very good, with a moist crumb and a topping of baked coconut. Lime sherbet in a delicate cookie was another pleasing ending to the meal.
The C Bar seems slightly marooned - the Caribbean decor with the nuances of sun and palm trees faces a midtown view of a parking garage and a dingy street out the front windows. An enticing array of Caribbean drinks is offered in a spring that refuses to warm up.
But the wait staff seems genuinely interested in their customers' welfare - a manager, worried one evening as I waited for friends, offered to call next door to see if they'd gone to other Legals (they had). And the food and service picked up noticeably from the first visit to one a month or so later, a good sign in a new restaurant. Legal C Bar offers a glimpse into a rich cuisine; it will be interesting to see where the chain's break with a formula takes it.
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