Legends & Icons

I ordered the talapita fish & chips this afternoon. The whole meal was bangin: 4 fish strips, slice of bread, fantastic steak fries & a small salad of lettuce & tomato for $ 10.00. Though I think for $ 10 I should have gotten more fish or larger pieces at least.
Cobbler & bean pies for sale. The owner Rashawn told me he won a contest for his pies a few years ago.
The interior walls host all kinds of wonderful pictures of legends and icons: Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, President Obama, Michael Jackson, Temptations, Marvin Gaye, OJ Simpson, Jackie Robinson, and many others… and Bruce Lee.
Inside walls are purple and there are a few spots in the restaurant that have African artifacts and pictures. There is also a bookshelf with various books. In the main corner of the restaurant there is a keyboard and a bass guitar.
Table & chairs are ghetto fabulous and not very fancy in line with the theme of the restaurant. But seems like a great meeting place for some though this place kind of gave me the creeps for some reason… maybe the dark purple walls, extremely low lighting and just a general feeling of depression in the place for me… but the food was on point!
Rashawn, the owner was very friendly and happily spoke to me about the restaurant.
Open mic on Sunday nights people.

I will probably end up revising this review because I’m vegetarian and on the night I visited most of the vegetarian items were not available.
This place in the Temescal is homey and unpretentious. The walls are decorated with pictures of musicians and figures from American political history. There’s even a couple of couches. I could see hangin out here with friends chattin and snackin.
By default I got the veggie burger (chicken patty variety), fries, and 2 sweets to go — red velvet cake and the bean pie. They were made fresh to order and i was surprised to find BBQ sauce on the burger — both pleasantly because I like BBQ and unpleasantly because it was just above my spicy threshold and after eating half of it, I had to quit for a while. The tomatoes and lettuce on it were healthy and fresh, and the chickn burger part was ok, but not particularly flavorful on its on.
The fries were fine — better than most places round here lately, which sadly isn’t saying much (oh Ginger Island, how I miss your fries!), but not distinguished. The red velvet cake was kinda drowning in frosting, and once i scraped it off, the cake part was also just ok.
I’d like to give this place, which recently opened, time to settle in and hope they’ll tweak the recipes. The atmosphere is friendly and Rashaan, the owner was very welcoming. He says his bean pie won an award 3 years ago in Chicago, but I ended up too full, so my review on that will have to wait too.