The never ending chili party that is the SGV keeps rolling on. Legendary does some old tricks as well - if not better - as anybody and then adds some new tricks. Meal last night was truly outstanding.
– Smokey Lamb Ribs
– Rich, thin cut Pork belly and cucumber (served having from a small rack like drying laundry)
– Fried Chicken Knees with chili and peanuts
– Glorious Water Boiled Fish (I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much floating Sichuan peppercorns)
Huh. I’m glad you enjoyed your meal, but I went here about a month ago with a friend and we were completely underwhelmed. That said, we basically ordered a bunch of appetizers and split them, but what we found was, compared to the menu pictures, an overabundance of (clearly store-bought) pasta and a lack of any meat, to the point that one dish, which was supposed to be Sichuan noodles with minced pork contained literally 5 pieces of ground pork and a bowl full of noodles swimming in oil. It seemed to us that they were maybe having cash flow issues, and were cutting back on meat and veggies and increasing the amount of cheap pasta filler.
One of the worst meals I’ve had in the LA-area, actually. I’ll try to find the photos to post…
Okay, here we go:
We found this to be doughy, without much in the way of filling. Not much heat, either; just greasy. If anything, the oil/sauce was sugary sweet. 
HARD PASS
Super doughy, scant filling. Very little flavor to what little meat/veg were inside, and also rather sweet. We had to request some vinegar to be brought, as they don’t normally serve it with any condiments, and while the vinegar helped, we both found the execution to be lacking. HARD PASS
(Going off memory here on the name of the dish)
This was pretty much it: a big bowl of oil with noodles in it. There were 2 pieces of baby bok choi floating around in there, and no more than an infant’s handful of minced pork, no more than 7 tiny little specks of meat, tops. Again, overly sweet. Looked nothing like the picture, which showed noodles and minced pork dressed in spicy chili oil. At this point, we knew this lunch had been a bust. HARD PASS
(Again, don’t remember exact name of dish)
So this looks decent, right? Finally a dish where they didn’t skimp on the meat? Nope! What you see is all there was: about 7 slices of cold chicken right on top of a mountain of noodles. The flavor profile was actually okay with this one, with a nice peanut sauce, but the proportions were still all out of whack. I felt like I was drowning in pasta, and knew I’d be hungry again in just a few hours. PASS
We both got this grapefruit green tea. It was really good, and I loved the tiki glass. Unfortunately, it took 15 minutes for me to get mine, and my dining companion was waiting another 10 minutes for his identical tea to arrive. We kept having to flag down the servers and ask if this or that were coming, and while they were very apologetic each time, nothing ever improved.
It was so bad, they even offered us a free dessert (without our asking, mind you), but we were so over the whole thing we just wanted to leave and so declined the offer. The restaurant wasn’t even half full! So we don’t know what happened, but it took us over 2 hours in total, and it was one of the worst restaurant meals either of us had had during recent memory. 
The glass is cool though.
I know, right?? It really was the lone highlight of an otherwise awful meal. I remember yelping in the parking lot after leaving and seeing reviews mention some of the same service issues I experienced, but not as much on the skimping on the food.
@CiaoBob 's positive review makes me wonder if I just had bad luck or something.
No, it was not bad luck or something. This place needs to find a real chef. Instead of playing off bottled condiments and Smart-N-Final quality ingredients.
but not as much as the straw
Interesting. TonyC wrote that the chef had been poached from a noted Sichuan place just up Valley (assuming he meant Szechuan Impression). So, he gone already?
We did not do ANY of the carby dishes. Flavors we had were totally on-point.
Okay, good to know.
Thanks for the report!
Not that I know of.
In my two visits (first one strong, second stronger), didn’t have any of the those dishes.
The smokey lamb ribs are worthy of the gods.Shredded vinegar potato and pork belly and cucumber on a rack with awesome sauce (what’s pinyin for that?). Chongqing noodles were good, not the strongest, but the noodles were springy and nicely al dente.
Service has been good both times, but can get a little stretched when busy. Parking is weird, but available.
Avoid the Mapo Stinky Tofu (my bad).
A little Suanmeitang (smokey plum juice) with Greenbar gin makes for a great meal.
Thank you so much; I was just telling my previous dining companion about the divergent experiences being reported on here about Legendary, specifically telling him I would need at least one more positive review with specific recommendations before I’d be up to give it another go.
Your post just pushed up that tally. Not sure when it will be, but this place is back on my radar. Thanks!
