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Milpitas Restaurant South Legend

A trip back to the Szechuan restaurant South Legend reveals a wealth of complex chile tastes and temperatures

by Stett Holbrook on Apr 14, 2010
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I HAD PLANNED to review South Legend a few weeks from now, but things didn’t work out that way. I was going to check out the new BBQ Kalbi Korean taco truck first, but a fire in the truck temporarily closed the business and forced me to change my schedule (read about the incident in this week’s Live Feed).

I fell back on Plan B, but the food at my Plan B restaurant was so bad I feared for my health. During my second visit to the restaurant I concocted a cover story to explain my hasty flight from the grim meal, something I’ve never had to do before. The restaurant that shall remain nameless was so spectacularly awful I couldn’t bring myself to review it. It will surely die without any help from me.

With my deadline looming, I resorted to the next restaurant in my review queue: South Legend. I had reviewed South Legend five years ago—almost five years ago to the week to be exact. The Milpitas Szechuan restaurant is one of my favorite places in Silicon Valley. The quality and variety of dishes set it apart from almost every other Chinese restaurant I’ve been to—at least that was the case five years ago. It was time to see how my memories held up.

Going to South Legend was like visiting an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in years but with whom I immediately fell back into an easy groove. Good friends, and good restaurants, are like that.

A quick word about Szechuan food. Yes, it can be spicy, but not always. The numbing, tingling affects of Szechuan peppercorns are more distinctive than the heat of raw chile peppers. To me, what makes Szechuan food so compelling is its complexity and the I’ve-never-tasted-that-before combinations. If you’ve confined your Chinese food experiences to Americanized Chinese standards like sweet-and-sour pork, broccoli beef and General Tso’s chicken, eating at South Legend will be like experiencing a totally different cuisine.

The appetizers are among my favorite things about South Legend. I could easily make a meal just from them. Eggrolls don’t exist here, but you will find things like diced rabbit in Szechuan red oil ($6.75), spinach in ginger sauce ($3.50), jellyfish with Chinese vinegar ($6.75) and the excellent spicy peanuts with diced, smoked dry tofu ($4.75). The peanuts and firm, chilled tofu are coated in chile pepper–reddened oil and flecked with Szechuan peppers and the salty funk of fermented black bean paste. I love the spicy pickles ($2.75), too, lightly pickled cabbage, carrots and radish in red chile oil.

Fish-fragrant shredded pork ($7.75) is another winner. The term “fish-fragrant” can be applied to any number of Szechuan dishes (fish-fragrant chicken, fish-fragrant beef, etc.). The name doesn’t mean it tastes like fish but that the spicy, sweet-and-sour flavors are based on those used in cooking fish.
Shredded smoked duck with ginger ($8.50) is a dish with great contrasting flavors. The rich and tender duck is enrobed in a silken, spicy, faintly sweet sauce, and the julienned ginger lifts it up with clean, light flavors and sparkle.

Chongqing fried chicken with roasted chiles ($10) looks like a ferocious plate of chicken nuggets with whole dried chiles, but the red peppers add more color than heat. It is spicy, but only moderately so. It’s the magic numbing effect of the Szechuan peppercorns that really distinguishes the dish. The chicken is available with or without bones. Eating it with the bones takes more work, but I think that’s where the flavor is.

The most striking dish I tried was the pen pen shrimp ($10). Pen pen means big bowl, and that’s what you get, a big glass bowl filled with a lava-red sauce loaded with shell-on shrimp, bean sprouts and enoki mushrooms. It looks like it’s going to be deadly hot, but it’s only mildly warming. Spoon the soupy stew over rice and prepare to splatter yourself with savory, saucy goodness.

For all the spices and layers of flavor I tried, it was the humble, utterly simple Szechuan chilled noodles ($6) that might have been my favorite dish on my second time around with South Legend. It consists of just coiled wheat-flour noodles, some julienned cucumbers, a few sliced green onions, a sprinkle of peanuts and a light, spicy-sweet peanut chile paste. That’s it. I loved it.

Desserts are not South Legend’s strong suit, and the leaden and oily fried yam cake ($2.50) proved it. The free vanilla ice cream served at the end of the meal is far better.

The dining room is decorated with framed black-and-white photographs of street scenes in China and is usually filled with mainly Chinese-speaking customers and a few in-the-know pale faces. Service is fast and friendly. Even though the restaurant caters to a Chinese clientele, all the waiters I spoke to offered cheery suggestions to help me navigate the nearly 200-item menu. I was in good hands here, and it was good to be back.

South Legend
Address: 1720 N. Milpitas Blvd., Milpitas.
Hours: 11am–2:30pm and 5–9pm Mon–Thu, 11am–2:30pm and 4:30–9pm Fri, 11am–3pm and 4:30–9:30pm Sat, and 11am–3pm and 4:30–9pm Sun.
Phone: 408.934.3970.
Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese.
Price Range: Most entrees $7.50–$11.



by Stett Holbrook on Apr 14, 2010
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