Legal Sea Foods, Washington, D.C.

Last night Leo got home from work late and was too tired to cook, plus, he had a brand new American Express gold card to break in, so he dragged me away from my quiet Friday night in front of the computer and television to accompany him to dinner. We weren't sure at first where we were going, but we ended up walking down K Street looking around and got reeled in at Legal Sea Foods.

Legal Sea Foods is the Boston-based national chain with about three dozen restaurants scattered up and down the East Coast and with about a half dozen locations scattered about the D.C. metropolitan area. It is several notches above a Red Lobster or some such, so I acquiesce to eating there even though it is a national franchise. Their restaurants are always very upscale, nicely decorated, and they do have very fresh, well-prepared seafood.

Leo started with a half dozen cherrystone clams on the half shell. They looked plump and good.



For his main course, he had the wood-grilled sea scallops accompanined by a seaweed salad and some parmesan risotto. He reported that all was acceptable, but I noticed he didn't rave about anything. He'd originally ordered a jalapeño cheese polenta, but they were out and asked to substitute the risotto, which he said was rather plain.



I started with a big bowl of Legal's New England clam chowder. It's pretty good, but it's never been the "best" clam chowder I've ever had, despite their reputation and their tradition of being served at the last seven presidential inaugurations. Personally, I prefer a few more clams, a few less potatoes, and a bit more cream instead of milk.



For my main course, I had a surprisingly filling grilled scallop salad with green apples, goat cheese, avocado, and little thin strips of crispy tortilla in a hot, spicy orange dressing. It was really good, and Leo was finished with his entree long before I'd finished mine.



With dinner, we each had a "flight" of white wines. Leo had the chardonnay flight, that included a 2004 Sonoma Cutrer "RRR," 2004 Benziger Carneros, and 2001 Chalk Hill Sonoma. The third wine is usually the best, and he liked it, though he thought it had a very smoky flavor. He thought maybe the first two wines had been accidentally switched, since he found the first to have a strong citrusy flavor, and the second was "supposed" to have citrus notes. Wine number one (whichever it was) he thought had a faintly sour taste. Wine number two he liked a lot by itself, but once the food arrived, he said it was not so good with food.



I had the pinot gris flight. Starting with a 2004 Marco Felluga from Collio, Italy, my first wine was crisp and sharp, though not terribly substantial and with not much of an aftertaste. Second was a 2005 Montinore Estate from Williamette Valley, Oregon, that I found thin and mineral. Third was a 2005 Barone Fini from Valdadige, Italy, that was light yet rich and had some apple notes that meshed nicely with my salad. Pinot gris in general are usually not heavy or substantial wines, and that was certainly the case with this flight. I suppose they must have selected them as "summer wines."



Sorry for the dark and blurry photography on some of these pictures—I was trying to avoid flash in the early part of our dinner because we were seated right next to another "serious" party of four and I didn't want to disturb them.

The service last night was unusually spotty for Legal. Our first courses were not brought at the same time. In fact, I had completely finished my bowl of chowder before Leo's clams arrived. Then, when an assistant brought our main courses, first he had to ask who got what, then after holding Leo's plate until Leo moved aside his clam tray, the assistant left the clam tray on the table in the way! Later, our waiter interrupted our conversation to ask if he could take away my obviously empty wine glass instead of just quietly removing it. I definitely don't like chatty waiters, especially at a higher end restaurant (yes, I know that at the lower end places, the chatty waiters get better tips, but we weren't in a place like that).

We thought about dessert. Several things looked good, and I was particularly tempted to try their Boston cream pie since it had the interesting non-traditional touch of the cake being soaked with coffee liqueur, but we opted not. (For those of you who don't know, a Boston cream pie isn't really a pie at all. It's a yellow cake with vanilla cream or pudding between the layers, all frosted with chocolate icing.)

Leo's new American Express worked just fine. He doesn't believe me, though, when I warned him that an Amex has to be paid off in full at the end of the month. I know from experience that an American Express with "no pre-set spending limit" can be a dangerous thing!