Tricky business, a seafood restaurant. Between the necessary fetish for freshness and the troublesome cooking, you wonder why more proprietors don't throw up their hands and open a fish & chips shop. For years, Al Forno offered fish only one day a week because that's when their fisherman docked. As for cooking, a fish filet can go from perfect to cat food faster than you can say, "Hold the tartar sauce."

Legal Sea Foods is a restaurant that didn't just gulp and accept the challenges, it grinned and thrived. Well, at least the happily self-sacrificing signature fish is grinning on the logo. Originating in 1950 as a Cambridge fish market, Legal opened there as a restaurant in 1968 and has since expanded down the East Coast as far as Florida, with more than two dozen locations. The chain's attention to quality control has gained it a widespread thumbs-up rep.

The Warwick restaurant opened in 1996, the year that celebrity chef Jasper White signed on to revamp their menu. He was the one who added jonnycakes and tomato-based Rhode Island clam chowder. (The restaurant's extra-creamy New England clam chowder has been a menu item at the last half-dozen presidential inaugural banquets.)

Stepping into the restaurant early on a Tuesday night, we found it packed and bustling enough for us to feel lucky about being seated without a reservation. The atmosphere is on the pub end of informal. Stuffed game fish adorn the walls alongside photos of deep-sea fishing and the like. Waitstaff wear ties, uniform blue shirts, and white lap aprons.

Legal's eclectic offerings for divergent tastes point to why the place is so busy. In addition to the raw bar and "Legal Classics" -- from baked scrod to almond-encrusted salmon -- there are regional seafood dishes from outside New England, plus various exotica. For appetizers, we could get Maryland crab cakes ($10.95), spicy Baltimore peel & eat shrimp ($9.95), and not only the ubiquitous coconut shrimp ($9.95), but blackened raw tuna sashimi ($11.95).

For a starter, I was attracted to something they called rasam seafood soup, available only by the cup ($4.25). I understood why they ration it when it arrived so jam-packed with cod, scallops and shrimp, all in a tantalizing hot and sour tomato broth. Johnnie was smitten at first sip and wished she'd ordered her own. But the fried calamari ($7.95) that we shared helped to distract her. Legal Sea Foods does what I'm surprised that more restaurants don't: offer an imaginative version, as well as the been-there local classic, plain fried and garlicky, tossed with hot peppers. A Thai-style option is quite good. Its spicy hot and sweet sauce has peanuts and pineapple chunks, and a generous amount is served in a bamboo basket over a bed of lettuce. Johnnie even scarfed the tentacles.

For the main course, the third person in our party stuck with the tried and true, lobster. He chose the 11/4-11/2 pound baked version ($31.95) -- up to 21/2 pounders are available -- and declared it delicious and appropriately cooked, its stuffing packed with shrimp and scallops. Johnnie had another classic, the seafood potpie ($14.95). A large Romaine salad preceded it, the house vinaigrette nicely balanced. The potpie was all she could ask for: plenty of fish, scallops, mussels, clams, and shrimp, as well as red bliss potatoes and baby carrots, both of which retained some bite.

To make up for those timid choices, I had the Arctic char ($16.95) with a Shandong sauce. Wood grilling gave the skin a crisp texture contrast and the spicy and tasty sauce didn't overpower the mild, pink fish. My choice of side was a baked potato, but instead of the string beans and carrots, Cindy, our remarkably attentive waitress, said I could have another choice of side -- the seaweed salad, with sesame seeds and sesame oil, and it was a tasty and cooling complement.

You don't want to neglect the desserts here, some of which are made off-premises but in Legal's own kitchen. We indulged in three, each $4.95 or under. The hot fudge brownie sundae was ordered with chocolate ice cream, and each packed variation was pronounced more than acceptable. Johnnie had bananas Foster, which came hot and in a little boat to pour over the ginger ice cream that she chose instead of vanilla. Not too sweet from the caramel -- exquisite, with just enough rum. I like Boston cream pie, and while the Legal version is billed as "not your traditional" version, I wasn't prepared for the total reconception: a flan-sized mound of surprisingly light custard between two thin layers of sponge cake, topped with a dark chocolate sauce.

Legal Sea Foods has been around for more than a half-century now. It's not hard to see why.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at billrod@reporters.net.

Issue Date: April 4 - 10, 2003