Hello my darlings! Bunny’s back, and I come bearing gifts. Easy there, greedy… I don’t have any diamonds or fancy clothes for you this week, but what I do have might be worth as much if you’re hungry. Remember when I told you Trussville isn’t all sweet tea and Momma’s home cooking? Well luckily you can still find her delicacies around town, even if it isn’t your own Momma doing the cooking. I was able to convince Anonymous to make the dredge all the way out to the sticks and take me to lunch at one of Trussville’s finest establishments, Legends Smokehouse Restaurant. The original location is actually located in Clay, and by the grace of God was spared by the recent storms. Those storms aren’t the only things likely to miss the place. If you blinked, you’d probably miss the little smoke shack too.
So to be honest, Anonymous hadn’t actually come all the way to town to see lil ‘ole me (but don’t think he’s above that, of course). He had been doing a bit of volunteer work nearby, and we decided to check out the scope of the damage in the Clay area. We saw the devastation done to those poor people’s homes, bless their hearts, and we saw the hopefulness of the volunteers and work being done, and it was enough to bring a tear to anyone’s eye. Our dear Anonymous and myself were no exceptions, of course.
All those tears made us thirsty, so when we noticed the small building we decided to stop by and see what they had to offer. We went in and found the crowd a bit too much for the tiny space to handle as they had to take to the patio with their full to the rim plates, but that didn’t stop the locals from ordering up their down-home dishes. While standing in line to order our sweet tea (Anonymous has to make his half unsweet… I guess he’s sweet enough), it wasn’t more than a couple of minutes before we realized that we had to have some of whatever was cooking just behind the cashier. The sign atop the pie cooler (pie made fresh every morning, might I add) read “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” so they didn’t have to tell us twice. We decided to head into Trussville to eat at Legends’ newest location, which is quite a bit bigger than this one with only three indoor tables, and the patio tables quickly filling up too.
We arrived at the Main Street spot with the rest of the lunch crowd. There’s no denying the popularity of the place if you base it on the crowds the two places attracted on this particular day. We seated ourselves and were delighted with the menu and its many options. We were both so hungry after anticipating it all the way from Clay, we decided to go the Chinese route and order a hodge-podge of things. There were so many things we wanted to try, we decided to order a little of most of what we thought looked too good to pass up. We learned that pork, chicken, and turkey are smoked fresh daily in the onsite cooker, and each day there is another special meat of the day in addition to the everyday smoked options. Anonymous went with the special, which on this Monday was country-fried steak with white or brown gravy; he got the white gravy which we both agreed would be fabulous on a home-made buttermilk biscuit. I found out they serve breakfast from 5:30-10:00 Monday-Friday (6:30-10:30 on Saturday, closed Sunday of course), so I am going to have to verify our prediction soon. I got the pulled pork, which comes with their regular BBQ sauce atop it, but I immediately added some of the spicy BBQ sauce to give it a little kick. Like I said, we couldn’t make up our minds so we got a separate order to share which included several of their regular sides, pulled chicken, and ribs. As soon as the ribs hit the table A. almost lost a finger as I snatched one of the finest tasting ribs I’d ever put in my mouth. Anonymous took the time to put sauce on his rib before eating, but I couldn’t wait and I didn’t regret it. The fall-off-the-bone meat was perfectly seasoned, tender, and moist.
The pulled pork and chicken were equally delicious, and had the perfect smoked flavor. No seriously, I tried to think of a better adjective to describe the flavor, but it was literally perfect. There’s no other way to tell you. We had them throw a few fried chicken tenders in the mix, mainly because we wanted to taste the Legends sauce we’d heard tale of. We weren’t disappointed. The creamy blend of saucy spices, which Anonymous did his best to identify for me, were put together just right. If you’ve been to any chicken chain restaurant lately and had their signature sauce you can imagine something comparable, but let me just tell you, Legends got it right. It wasn’t too garlicky or too mayonnaisey (I coined that word myself; feel free to use it) as they so often are; it was the ideal complement to the fried chicken tenders.
Anonymous insisted on using a separate eating utensil for each dish, of course, so as not to put his delicate palate into flavor shock. While I tried to eat as demurely as possible, I’m sure it looked more like I was shoveling the downhome divinities into my mouth. I am a country girl, as I’ve told you before, but I guarantee you’d be hard pressed to find a Yankee who could resist this food, or any person from anywhere for that matter.
Even if you’re a vegetarian… I mean who can resist farm fresh vegetables? They have a list of sides that always make the menu, like mac-n-cheese, french fries, fried okra, baked beans, cole slaw, and potato salad to name a few. They also have a few fresh vegetables made daily on their list of specials. I had spinach, sliced tomato, and a corn muffin while A. had butter peas, creamed potatoes with brown gravy, and Texas toast.
Just as I put the last bite of a slice of my juicy, ripe tomato in my mouth the waitress came around to offer dessert. I was stuffed, but couldn’t pass up trying at least one piece of freshly made pie. This decision was the toughest, but I overlooked the French silk, peanut butter, and banana split pies and decided to go with lemon icebox, and Anonymous had the pecan. Now these five aren’t even close to being the only options. I think there were at least five other kinds of pie, peach cobbler, and banana pudding.
Oh, remember when I said these are all made fresh everyday? It’s true, and it’s all by one woman who I’m told is called Ms. Rebecca. God bless this woman. I’m considering asking her if she’ll adopt me, but I think I might have missed the age bracket. We finished up the pie, and both left with take-out boxes, after all what is southern cooking without leftovers?
The locally owned restaurant, with nothing fancy about it except Ms. Rebecca’s pie selection, is the epitome of fine dining, if you ask me. It feels so much like home there you’ll swear it’s home cooking, and it’ll be hard to prepare the same meals for the price you’ll pay to have them cook it for you. I told y’all I had a gift for you, and there it is. If you had already discovered this local treasure before I put the word out, sorry… today wasn’t your day for gifts.
A. managed another trip to town without running into the country girl, so don’t y’all start taking her place with complaints just yet. Bunny will be back with some new discovery before you know it.
Ciao for now, my darlings.
163 Main Street, Trussville (205) 655-7474
6333 Old Springville Road Pinson (205) 681-1122