Legend Chinese Restaurant - The Full Story

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I've been to Legends since I was about 9 years old. Mainly because it is the only dim sum place around my neighborhood. That's life when you don't live in Scarborough or Markham. My father refused to go there for months one time when the manger gave a family friend of ours and my uncle discount cards but refused to give my dad one. He still never got the discount card.

I always remembered Legends as a place of average food (remember, only dim sum place around here) and outrageous prices (for dim sum). My friend and I went there once, and I confess that we we ordered A LOT of food, but it ended up costing $40 for the both of us. In case you didn't know, dim sum is supposed to be cheap. That's one reason why people like dim sums.

Another thing I remembered about Legends was its amount of caucasians. A lot of non-Asians go to have dim sum there. I have fond memories of the mangers serving them as soon as they arrived whike we continue to wait after 30 minutes.

Now, there's a new owner in town, and I have no idea what his/her name is, but we decide to call up our family friend for dim sum and see how new management is going. So we arrived at around 11:30 (good time to beat the rush), and we were seated right away (there were many empty seats). Looking around, there were a few tables of caucasians. Says good things about the new Legends. And as before, it was a paper system rather than a push-cart system (takes the fun out of dim sum, but it's less dangerous I guess).

What we ordered:
Beef Balls 牛肉球
Shrimp Dumplings 蝦餃
Shaomai 燒賣 -- MY FAVORITE!
Chicken and Veggie Buns 雞包仔
Spare Ribs in Black Bean Sauce 豉汁排骨
Crispy Tofu Skin Rolls 腐皮捲
Egg Tart 蛋撻
Shrimp Rice Noodle Rolls 蝦腸
Veggie Rice Noodle Rolls 素腸 - New item on menu

Everything came about 15 minutes after we ordered. Food was average in term of oil and MSG. Yes, Chinese food has oil and MSG. Especially the cheap ones. Don't be naive, that is why they taste so good. Everything was pretty much average as well, but I really liked the Crispy Tofu Skin Rolls and the Veggie Rice Noodle Rolls. The Crispy Tofu Skin Roll was, well, crispy! I've never seen Veggie Rice Noodle Rolls at other restaurants, but it was full of veggies and really good. Highly recommended for vegetarians, especially since there are not many dim sum items for vegetarians.

The one thing that I was absolutely disappointed about the restaurant was the Shaomai. My ONE favorite food and they messed it up. Perhaps they were trying to experiment with a new way to make Shaomai, but as opposed to having distinguishable shrimp and pork portions, they used a blender and mushed it. And the mush tasted like crabs. Also, the waiters didn't want to take away our empty plates. But I was less crushed by that. The Shaomai!!!

All in all, Legends remains an average restaurant, but as it continues to be the only big dim sum place around, you'll probably find me eating there again. Just not the Shaomai.