Flex Mussels

We had tickets to the Banksy exhibit later in the evening near the border of Chelsea and West Village. This mussel restaurant was something I had liked to go since I moved out to NYC, and finally all stars aligned. Surprisingly, there are not a lot of mussel restaurants in NYC. In Los Angeles in Culver City, I used to go to a place called “Meet in Paris”, and it had literally 10+ different types of mussel broths. This reminded me of those vibes, so I wanted to try this out.

Ambiance

When we arrived, we were one of the first patrons during dinner, and they seated us in the back. The restaurant was pretty spacious for a West Village spot. The lighting was dimly lit, and they played decent rock music as the ambient noise.

The prices for the oysters are pretty expensive comparatively, so we opted to get it cooked.

Service was pretty attentive and friendly.

Food

The one with vodka came with cucumber, basil, lemon, and soda. My partner ordered this and thought it was rather strong. I gave it a try, and it was definitely not as fruity as many others probably prefer.

The roasted oysters came with blue point oysters, garlic breadcrumbs, herb butter, and parmesan. This was priced at $24, and it is kind of expensive. But as expected, it was pretty delicious.

The san daniele came with prosciutto, caramelized onions, and cream. The mussels were cooked pretty good, and the ingredients gave it a creamy and salty taste as expected.

The classic came with white wine, herbs, garlic, and butter. This is pretty much the classical mussels with white wine sauce. It’s definitely not the best I’ve tasted, but it was pretty decent. My partner thought this was on the bland side, but for me it was fine. I thought the San Daniele above was very salty.

The bread came with the buckets and served as a great vessel to soak up the broth. Ironically, my partner started saying their San Daniele was very salty towards the end, and they were unable to finish it. For me, I was able to finish the classic very easily.

The fries came with a little side of ketchup. Mussels and french fries are a pretty common thing with this pairing. The fries reminded me a lot of McDonald’s though the flour that it was fried in tasted a little powdery to me.

We would’ve loved to try the doughnuts for dessert, but we had to hurry to our event.

Final Verdict

Overall, the food here is pretty good, and they do a great job with cooking mussels. This is a fantastic, not too crowded, spot that would be great for an after work or casual night out. The mussel buckets can be a little messy, but it’s definitely great for sharing and trying different broths.

Yelp Jabs

If you really love mussels it’s a fun spot for sure, but still feels a bit novelty… we also couldn’t get any phone service so couldn’t look up pictures of menu items on Yelp/Google, which is something we enjoy doing but not the end of the world.

Yeah it’s a novelty, but it’s also a fairly French thing. I have a friend from France who simply loves this stuff. Not getting phone service could also be seen as a good thing to encourage exploration.

I got the mussels with tomato sauce and wasn’t impressed by either the sauce or the mussels

This Elitist fell for the restaurant trap as what Elitists typically do. General rule of thumb is to stay away from any tomato sauce based sauces simply because the probability of the sauce being something out of this world is very slim.