Friday, March 4, 2016.
Legacy Kitchen.
Mary Ann isn't available for dinner--she goes to the gathering around Donald Trump at the Lakefront airport instead. I take the opportunity to have dinner at the Legacy Kitchen's newer location in the Warehouse District. It's a half-block from the radio station, and on my list for a visit, but the mood didn't strike me until tonight. I choose only restaurants that I feel like going to when I have a review in mind.
The Legacy is one of two (the other is in Metairie) of its kind. The company that operates it is the New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood outfit, but it's quite a bit more ambitious in its menu. It takes over the expansive space where a series of restaurants has opened and closed in the Renaissance Arts Hotel.
The extensive renovation in this big building takes the place back in time. It's a century-old warehouse, but until Legacy came along there was no way of telling that. Now the ornamental bricks have been removed from the many large columns in the dining room, and you can see the heavy wood structure of the floor above through intentionally-cut cracks in the ceiling. It looks like a warehouse again, more or less.
The line of tables along the Tchoupitoulas Street sidewalk tells us that the Legacy Kitchen is going after the crowd of twenty- and thirty-somethings that have clustered for years across the street, in front of the former Lucy's Retired Surfer Café. (That place has changed its name to the 701 Bar & Restaurant. Obviously, they have not read my opinion that restaurants with numbers instead of names are doomed.)
[caption id="attachment_50875" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Crab and corn bisque @ Legacy Kitchen.[/caption]
The service staff snaps right into gear and fetches me a clean-tasting gin and tonic made with Hendricks and the inevitable cucumber. I then have a bowl of crab and corn soup, which continues a run of pretty good soups at both here and the Metairie location. On two other days, the soup du jour is a surprisingly good turtle soup, which says something about the targeted customers.
[caption id="attachment_50874" align="alignnone" width="480"]
South Beach style tacos.[/caption]
The entree sounds better than it is. You have a choice of three recipes for cold tacos. I ask for the South Beach ensemble, which incorporates a little bit of grilled fish, Caribbean cole slaw, firecracker sauce (whatever that is) and cilantro and lime sour cream. It's light, crunchy, cool, and has a sweet-and spicy flavor profile. It comes with black beans on the side, which I liked better than anything on the main plate.
[caption id="attachment_50873" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Beignets.[/caption]
I believe that the taco concept has been adopted by a lot of chefs to do anything they want, jam it into tortillas, call it a taco, and send it right out. I don't think it's going to be long-term, once the main population of eaters has been exposed to this.
Dessert is a trio of very large but flattened beignets. They taste fine but are a bit on the heavy side. All I can get down is one whole doughnut and one bite of a second one. They need to cut and rolls the dough thinner, and fry it at a higher temperature.
I get home well before MA does. She finds the Trump event interesting, but she was spooked out by the large number of protesters milling about. She also says that the Runway Café at the airport looks like a cool place to have lunch. That's what everybody says about the place.
Crab and corn bisque @ Legacy Kitchen.[/caption]
The service staff snaps right into gear and fetches me a clean-tasting gin and tonic made with Hendricks and the inevitable cucumber. I then have a bowl of crab and corn soup, which continues a run of pretty good soups at both here and the Metairie location. On two other days, the soup du jour is a surprisingly good turtle soup, which says something about the targeted customers.
[caption id="attachment_50874" align="alignnone" width="480"]
South Beach style tacos.[/caption]
The entree sounds better than it is. You have a choice of three recipes for cold tacos. I ask for the South Beach ensemble, which incorporates a little bit of grilled fish, Caribbean cole slaw, firecracker sauce (whatever that is) and cilantro and lime sour cream. It's light, crunchy, cool, and has a sweet-and spicy flavor profile. It comes with black beans on the side, which I liked better than anything on the main plate.
[caption id="attachment_50873" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Beignets.[/caption]
I believe that the taco concept has been adopted by a lot of chefs to do anything they want, jam it into tortillas, call it a taco, and send it right out. I don't think it's going to be long-term, once the main population of eaters has been exposed to this.
Dessert is a trio of very large but flattened beignets. They taste fine but are a bit on the heavy side. All I can get down is one whole doughnut and one bite of a second one. They need to cut and rolls the dough thinner, and fry it at a higher temperature.
I get home well before MA does. She finds the Trump event interesting, but she was spooked out by the large number of protesters milling about. She also says that the Runway Café at the airport looks like a cool place to have lunch. That's what everybody says about the place.
