My party of 2 ate at Legal Sea Foods for the first time. Our $112 lunch was a great value, but its famous dishes were disappointing.

• I visited Legal Sea Foods for the first time with a friend and tried a range of its dishes.

• Our $112 meal felt like an amazing value, but the crab cake and lobster rolls were disappointing.

• The surprising stars of the meal were free rolls and dishes we ordered from the chain's sushi menu.

Seafood can be hard to find if you don't live near a coastline — but some chain restaurants make it more accessible.

I recently turned to such chains when I wanted to get seafood in my fairly landlocked state of Pennsylvania.

One of the most famous is Red Lobster, but the casual-dining seafood chain hasn't been doing so hot and recently filed for bankruptcy.

So instead, I turned to one of its lesser-known competitors, Legal Sea Foods, to satisfy my seafood cravings.

The Legal Sea Foods I visited felt bright and welcoming.

Legal Sea Foods is known for the quality and freshness of its seafood. It began as a family fish market in 1950 before becoming a full restaurant by 1968.

At the time of writing, there are 26 Legal Sea Food locations in the Northeast, 21 of which are in Massachusetts, the company's founding state.

I visited the chain's only Pennsylvania location on a Saturday afternoon with a friend.

The location we visited had a more upscale atmosphere than the rest of the mall it was in.

The Legal Sea Foods we visited is inside Pennsylvania's King of Prussia Mall, and the decor and lighting inside the restaurant looked more upscale than I expected.

The restaurant had green-tiled walls, dark-brown booths, wood tables, and leather-looking chairs. It felt well-lit but elegant, and I especially liked the big blue-and-white light fixtures.

The fresh oyster and clam options were displayed at the center of the restaurant.

An area with the day's oyster and clam options was set at the center of the restaurant, next to where we were sitting.

The signs showed the name of each option along with the state they came from.

When we went, Wellfleet oysters, Littleneck clams, and Doxbury clams were all available from Massachusetts. There were also seats around this area for diners.

The menu included classic seafood options, and lunch specials were available to order.

Legal Sea Food's menu had plenty of options, separating dishes into categories for starters, sandwiches, salads, sushi, and more.

The starters ranged in price from $8.50 for soups in smaller sizes to $23 for its signature crab cake.

The lunch combos were on a separate menu, with four different roll options ranging in price from $16 to $25. The sandwich section included crab and lobster rolls, fish and chicken sandwiches, and burgers.

The half-pound Maine lobster roll was the most expensive item on the menu, at $43. You could upgrade to a full pound for an additional $39.

Some items, such as the baked lobster mac and cheese, are ordered at market price.

There were also sushi and non-seafood dishes available to order.

I was pleasantly surprised to find plenty of options for diners looking to spend less than $25 per person while still ordering fish.

Diners who didn't want seafood had more options than I would expect at a seafood chain, such as the cauliflower starter, grilled-chicken sandwich, several different salads, and a quinoa power bowl.

I hadn't expected to see a sushi menu here, either. Although it was quite small and simple, the prices weren't bad. Each dish was $20 or less.

We received two rolls and butter after we placed our lunch order.

Our server was friendly and helpful, letting us know that almost anything could be modified except for items on the Legal Test Kitchen menu, which are seasonal.

Two rolls and butter were brought to our table after we ordered our starters, which was a surprise as we hadn't been expecting any bread.

They were warm, had a wonderfully crispy crust, and were soft inside. Both of us agreed they were some of the best free restaurant bread we've ever had.

We both enjoyed how buttery and well-seasoned the blackened tuna tataki tasted.

We started with the blackened tuna tataki, a raw-bar menu item. It was priced at $18 and served with a sesame-chili vinaigrette, wasabi cream, sesame seeds, a seaweed salad, and pickled ginger.

I was happily surprised that the tuna didn't taste fishy at all and was, instead, very buttery. The flavor seemed very Cajun-inspired, and each bite was well-balanced. The spicy seasoning complimented the tuna well.

The seaweed salad on the plate was not overly salty and tasted light and refreshing.

The spicy salmon from the sushi menu ended up being our favorite dish.

We also ordered the spicy salmon with crispy rice, seaweed salad, and ponzu from the sushi menu.

The $15 dish was made up of well-portioned bites that were crispy and perfectly seasoned.

Every bite had a satisfying crunch, and the sauce was a little sweet. This combination made this dish have more flavor than either of our mains.

We both agreed that this was our favorite dish, which was unexpected since we hadn't originally planned to try any sushi options.

We were disappointed by Legal Sea Food's signature crab cake.

Legal Sea Food's crab cakes seemed quite popular — the restaurant has it marked on its menu as a signature dish.

Unfortunately, this didn't feel like a stand-out item for us.

The crab cake cost $23 and contained lump crab and a mustard sauce. It was served with a salad garnish.

It was surprisingly small and very tender, with the crab having the consistency of pulled pork. The outside wasn't crispy, and although the inside had a fine flavor, it was the most boring dish we tried.

I was surprised that it's Legal Sea Food's signature as it didn't have anything particularly distinct about it, especially compared to the flavorful sushi items we tried.

The lunch combos came with plenty of food.

My friend and I both ordered a lunch combo for our main meal, which consisted of a roll, fries, soup, coleslaw, and oyster crackers.

We paid $25 for the lobster-roll combo and $20 for the crab-roll combo.

This significantly lowered the cost of both main items, as a 1/2-pound lobster roll usually costs $43, and the crab roll costs $34 when ordering the larger portion outside the lunch combo.

I'd order the lobster bisque again.

The lobster bisque was surprisingly creamy, and not overwhelmingly sweet or salty.

As someone who prefers soup with a milder flavor, I enjoyed this. The bisque also had a very generous amount of tender lobster.

Neither of us enjoyed the clam chowder much.

We were excited to try the New England clam chowder, as I'd read that it has been served at presidential inaugurations for decades since 1981.

It may be fit for a US leader, but we thought the clam chowder was disappointingly chunky with an overwhelming clam taste. I wish it had contained more potato chunks or other flavors.

We both agreed we wouldn't get it again, especially when the lobster bisque was tastier and a great value because of the amount of lobster in it.

Still, each soup was a generous size and served with delicious Westminster oyster crackers.

The crab roll tasted very plain.

In my opinion, the crab meat in the crab roll had no distinct flavor. Fortunately, the bread was perfectly toasted and buttered.

Though it was packed with a good amount of crab, the crab roll wasn't something either of us wanted to eat much of when we had tastier options in front of us.

The coleslaw that came with the roll was really crunchy and tasted fresh. I liked that it didn't have too much mayonnaise. It was disappointing that the coleslaw on the side of the roll had more flavor than the crab roll itself.

We thought the meat in the lobster roll had an unpleasant texture.

I felt let down by Legal Sea Food's lobster roll. The lobster was a bit chewy and not as tender as we hoped it would be after we ate such perfectly tender lobster in the bisque.

There was not much butter on it, so it was a bit dry. Even though the roll contained a generous amount of lobster, I would've preferred a smaller portion that was more tender.

Our combos both came with chunky steak fries, which were simple and tasty.

Our soups were the only dishes we decided to take home.

The chain has a dessert menu, but after everything else we tried, we didn't have an appetite for more food.

We had finished the bread rolls, tuna tataki, spicy salmon, and crab cake entirely. Although we still had lobster roll and crab roll left over, neither of us enjoyed them enough to take them home.

We decided to take our soups home, and our server brought us to-go containers and extra Westminster oyster crackers.

The chain's value and quality make it worth returning to, though I'd stick to ordering off the sushi menu in the future.

Overall, I was impressed by my experience at Legal Sea Food, both for its atmosphere and the quality of food we could try at a reasonable price point.

My party of two ate a large amount of well-portioned food for only $112 before tip, and the value made great seafood seem like a more accessible dining option for someone on a budget.

Although the prices and overall experience were great, the signature dishes we were most excited about were disappointing. I'd skip the famous dishes next time and would definitely like to try more of the sushi menu, as both sushi items we tried were delicious and affordable.

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