The Mussel Pot, West Village

Last night I ate at the  Mussel Pot on Bleecker Street in the West Village.  I’m sorry to report that it was a lackluster experience.  If you spend some time researching this place, you will see that is has received very mixed reviews.  This is not a surprise to me, considering that this is the second time I have dined here – your experience largely depends on your order.

The first time dining at the Mussel Pot was about a month ago with some friends.  I really enjoyed the food and wine that night (I got the Lobster Cobb Salad – a huge portion and a healthy serving of lobster, bleu cheese, and avocado).  My friends tried the Fish and Chips (very large portion and delicious), the Lobster Sliders, and the Provencal Mussels.  The mussels were tasty, but not memorable and I’m afraid I didn’t try the sliders.

We only experienced two snags on this first occasion.  Both were technical problems.  We were sitting in the back garden (complete with koi pond and waterfall), which was lovely, until it began to pour.  The waitstaff hurried to open the awning over our tables, but there were so many leaks in it that every table (except for ours) had to move inside.  As long as I could deal with the rain water lightly splashing my leg, we were able to remain at our table.  Huge drawback to the garden.  Why have an awning at all if it doesn’t do its job?

The second problem occured when we tried to pay the check with a credit card (which they gladly accept).  Their machines were down.   The waiter kept telling us they should be back up “any minute now.”  After a half an hour, we finally asked if we could have a round of drinks on the house since we had to continue to wait.  The waiter nicely said he would check with the manager.  Next thing you know, he comes back with a kind of faux receipt which basically has all the credit card info on it and tells us that as soon as the machine is back online that they will run the card and that we can be on our way now.  Real nice.  Why didn’t they do that in the first place?  Clearly they don’t practice the “keep your patrons happy” type of customer service.

Regardless of these technical difficulties, the food and wine were delicious, so I was excited to go again.  This time around I had a  bloomspot  voucher ($34 for the prix fixe menu plus two cocktails, worth $82).  Each time I called the Mussel Pot regarding this voucher, I got a different story on what it covered.  It turns out that it gets you the appetizer called the Tower for Two (worth $42 according to the menu on their website and $46 on the menu you get in-house) and your choice of two $12 cocktails.  This comes to a total of $70, not $82.  When I brought this to the waiter’s attention before we even ordered it, he assured me that I would be getting the full $82 value of the voucher.  I thought maybe he had something else he was throwing on there, or that it was a larger portion than the appetizer version – something.  We ordered a Classic Dirty martini and basic mojito.  Both were to my liking, except that I think I like my martini’s dirtier and my mojitos sweeter than most.  The Tower for Two was the exact same serving as the $42 appetizer, and was awful.  Aside from the oysters on the half-shell, which were great, the littleneck clams were puny, the shrimp and soft-shell crab were grossly over-cooked, and the lobster slightly less over-cooked.  The ceviche was unpleasantly dressed.  We had originally planned on ordering some other dishes, but after struggling to get through the Tower, we easily decided to bail and asked for the check.  As expected, the total came to $70, not $82.  Can anyone say “false advertising?”

To sum up – if you must try this place, definitely do not order the Tower for Two – stick to the Fish and Chips and Lobster Cobb.  If you can spare a little extra dough, however, don’t waste your time and go to  Flex Mussels  instead.