Long Island Winery Visit -
Legends Restaurant

The Legends restaurant is located off the beaten path in the Long Island winery region. This means that you rarely find tourists here - but you often are sitting next to several winemakers, taking a break from their long day.

This traditional sports bar has several TVs and even pipes in commentary from the different teams when big events are happening. The dark wood interior is very cozy, with a stone fireplace on one side and tables along the large windows at the street. There is both the pub side for casual dining as well as the restaurant side with white linen tableclothes for the more formal dinner.

For lunch, we ate at the bar. Bob and Peter had burgers while Eric and I enjoyed the Tuna Napoleon. At $10.95, this huge appetizer was layers of tuna sashimi interlaced with a thin phyllo type dough. It was extremely tasty and filling. The burgers were hand formed and featured large, hearty french fries. On the downside, when Bob ordered his burger medium rare, it actually was raw in the center, because the burger was more of a meatball shape. This made it both hard to eat and also I imagine hard to cook through properly.

There was quite a variety of beer on tap, although I admit I drank water in order to keep my palate fresh for another round of winetasting.

The waitresses were very prompt and friendly, keeping an eye on our group and making sure we did not run out of anything.

When we returned again for dinner, the place was packed even though it was only 5pm and kept getting fuller as the night progressed. We ate in the more formal dining area, only because the pub side was already forming a waiting list. The menu was similar but did have added items for the dinner menu. There were random problems. Once again the steak Bob ordered came out rare in the middle and had to be re-cooked. We were seated in the back, and for some reason someone kept turning out the overhead lights in our section completely, and they were not turned back on until we pointed it out. Peter's steak was supposed to be horseradish encrusted, but came out plain. It turns out the menu had been printed incorrectly, and the owner came out to apologize for this and to bring horseradish on the side.

They did have quite a good selection of Long Island wines on the wine list, and at reasonable prices! However, they served them in giant balloon goblets, which are really pretty bad for tasting anything but the alcohol aroma of a wine. Peter was able to get a more reasonable wine glass, though.

Full Notes of January 2005 Trip

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All content on the WineIntro website is personally written by author and wine enthusiast Lisa Shea. WineIntro explores the delicious variety and beautiful history which makes up our world of wine! Lisa loves supporting local wineries and encouraging people to drink whatever they like. We all have different taste buds, and that makes our world wonderful. Always drink responsibly.