Legal Harborside

Boston’s Liberty Wharf is one of the best ideas anyone has had in a long time. At least in the restaurant biz, and at least in Boston. I can’t believe that this beautiful, sleek new complex just popped up along our beautiful waterfront, suddenly giving multiple options for indoor and outdoor ocean-front dining (Del Frisco’s, Temazcal, Jerry Remy’s, Legal Harborside). It is simply brilliant.

Last night, even though I was still feeling under the weather, I met my husband down on Liberty Wharf for what we hoped would be Cinco de Mayo dinner at Temazcal. Ha ha ha. Along with everyone else in the South Boston/Seaport area, I smushed into the hallway near the hostess stand, only to learn that a table for two was at least a 90 minute wait. Those margaritas looked good, but I hadn’t had an appetite all day and suddenly did. 90 minutes would not do.

Since we wanted to try Legal Harborside anyway, we made our way down there and were welcomed and seated right away.

Legal Harborside is light and airy, with picnic-style tables along the floor-to-ceiling windows. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, I decided to have a Top Shelf Margarita.

Legal Harborside has a menu that is quite different from your regular Legal’s, and I really liked that. While I do like going to Legal’s I feel like I know what to expect and always get the same thing. The Legal Harborside menu offered an extensive oyster menu as well as lots of non-seafood items. We decided to start with some buffalo shrimp, which were absolutely, positively finger and plate licking good.

Served atop a zesty sauce with blue cheese crumbles and avocado, the shrimp were lightly fried and coated in buffalo sauce. We literally scraped every last bit of sauce off of the plate. SO good.

We also chose one of Legal Harborside’s many bruschetta toppings, whipped gorgonzola and fig jam. Again, it was hard to decide; they also have truffled egg salad, artichoke puree, and several others. I may go back and make a meal out of oysters and bruschetta.

My cold/flu cravings over the past week have been for all sorts of unhealthy food, things we don’t keep in the house, like fries, popcorn, and pizza. Since I was faced with a menu full of treats, I went for the whole belly fried clams appetizer for my entrée. The portion ended up being huge, and I only ate about half, but boy was it good! Perfectly golden fried, briny clam bellies scream New England summer to me. A fresh tartar sauce and lemon wedge rounded it out.

The husband also went fried, opting for the open face fish sandwich on rye bread with caper tartar sauce and cole slaw. He loved the flaky fish with all of the great flavors and textures that came with this creative sandwich.

The dining room was crowded and a bit noisy; the only downfall I can see to Liberty Wharf is its proximity to the World Trade Center. The entire place was filled with attendees from a conference, and while great for business, I wonder if this will be detrimental to regular Bostonians wanting to get tables in the complex. I hope not, because I give Legal Harborside two thumbs way up! It is an awesome place for casual dining and great food. Our server was friendly and made sure we had everything we needed. Everyone was happy.

And the views. Well, you might just get lucky and see a double rainbow. My photos didn’t come out great, but there were two rainbows side-by-side, something I am fairly used to seeing in Ireland but have never seen here.

Did you do anything fun or eat/drink anything good for Cinco de Mayo? I am definitely returning to Temazcal soon; it looks fantastic!