mussel bar & grille - bethesda

can you say delicious? local friends brought us here while we were visiting and it definitely is a must visit. themusselsand pizza were amazing. also had the mac and cheese app and the brussels sprouts. so great. the waiter had some excellent drink selections. the atmosphere, service and food was all excellent. would definitely be a frequent selection of we lived in the area. highly highly recommended.

good for mussel. the wine/beer is very good, but a little bit expensive. themusselsare food, but i expect a larger portion.

... now, there is a second mussel bar open in atlantic city. mussel bar’s menu has plenty of options:musselsand fries, belgian tarts, omelets, salads, soups, burgers, and brunch items like omelets, bennys, and even chicken and waffles. there was a lemon souffle pancake i really would have liked to sample. i was joined by two lovely ladies behind the pink palm, a local boutique chain that carries primarily lilly pulitzer along with a few other bright, pr

the fries are delicious and come with three different types of mayonnaise. for beer, i tried the kasteel tripel and the chimay blue. both very strong and delicious beers. the kasteel tripel was on draft. smooth beer but be wary of the abv. the chimay blue was excellent and had an aftertaste of coffee. for food, i ordered themusselswith chorizo and goat cheese with a side of frites. this was delicious! the portion is huge and i really loved the flavors. we asked for bread to dip in the sauce, and they eventually brought us out two basket's worth. we wanted to take th

yum!musselswere steamed well…. only 1 mussel didn't open…. served with frites and a dipping sauce…. fries were crispy and seasoned well. mussel bar also has a huge beer selection….. i opted for the antigoon (pale ale)…. pretty good. can't wait to go back.

sometimes we do silly things to save money. we live next to brasserie beck and love theirmusselsand frites. so when robert wiedmaier opened the more casual mussel bar in bethesda, we were intrigued but couldn't see a reason to schlep out to bethesda to try the food we can get about 50 paces from our door. however, when an offer for a 50% off groupon hit my inbox, i took it as a sign that we needed to go to bethesda. mussel bar is like brasserie beck's younger, tattooed, rocker brother. the servers wear t-shirts, they don't take reservations, and they blast different concert dvds during dinner service. we were treated to u2's 360 tour . if you don't want a side of bono (or similar rock icon) with your mussels, it's probably better to come during lunch. on a friday evening, i metroed up to bethesda to meet b after work. i knew we'd be in for a wait but i still was a bit taken aback by the 1 hour and 20 minute prediction. who says people aren't eating out in this economy? we found some

disappointing, disappointment and more. despite numerous bad reviews, my friends and i decided we'd give it a try last evening (3-8-11). having been pre-warned of the nosiy environment we chose a week night for our dining experience hoping to eliminate some of the racket. think twice. did not make one iota of a difference in the noise level. cannot imagine what a friday or saturday night might sound like, but can bet your bottom dollar you wouldn't be able to hear yourself, let alone a companion. why so noisy? this does not add to the ambiance or at least it didn't for us.

we began with two neat scotch drinks and one bloody mary made with premium vodka as we waited on a table. expensive drinks.
not long after a table became available and the host led us to what looked like the back of the restaurant but lo and behold there were two other separate dining parties already seated and eating. we squeezed in to our allotted space and began with a pork and mussel tart which my friends liked a lot. once done we moved on to order three distinctly different mussel dishes hoping to savor each other's selection. the table right beside us had asked for bread continuously and we asked our wait staff to honor their request before we placed our order.
the mussel dishes came out simultaneously and very hot, which is a plus in my book. we had to ask for bread again as our wait staff had forgotten to bring ours.
we shared ourmusselswith one another and it was hard to tell one dish from the next. they were flavorless. my choice had been a hot spicy mussel dish and the only heat came from the stove themusselshad been cooked on. truly could not distinguish any particular spices among three different dishes. sad.
when leaving i turned to my friends and asked how they would rank their dining experience? one gave it a possible four, the other a six and my ranking is yet to be configured because it is difficult to separate my personal disappointment from downright outrage after spending as much as we did for our tasteless mussel dishes.
robert w. please tend to the bethesda kitchen and help them live up to the reputation you've built at your other establishments. bethesda deserves better.

stick to the mussels. if you stick to themusselsand go off-peak, then this is a decent meal. the thaimusselsare our favorite. absolutely avoid the oysters - they have been processed in some abnormal way and are horrid.

even before mussel bar had opened in bethesda, there was a lot of talk about it online. i definitely wanted to try it because i lovemusselsas it reminds me of my childhood. located on woodmont avenue, there is metered street parking and a metered garage

what better way to spend a lazy autumn afternoon than with friends over steaming pots ofmusselsand some dangerously dark beer? robert wiedmaier builds on his brasserie beck, brabo, and marcel's fame with the new mussel bar in bethesda. large and airy, m

too loud to hear my companions`. went with high hopes to check out the mussel bar. showed up at 8:30 on a sat. night; was told an hour wait. wait was an hour and fifteen minutes. there was nowhere to stand comfortably to wait (bar and standing bar tables (without chairs) were full. food was excellent once we were seated. but it was so loud you had to scream to talk to your companions. don''t know why when the restaurant was full they had to have blaring rock music. if they put in outside heaters, the outdoor space would be perfect for waiting. service acceptable/not great. for instance, we ordered spinach salad (great), flatbread (spectacular), and two orders ofmussels- classic and shroom. they basically had the same cream sauce. the server could have told us this in advance and recommended we try another variety.

i so wanted mussel bar to be good! it wasn't . the decor and ambience is that of a gastropub which by my book is a good start. the restaurant offers a deep selection of belgium beers priced from $8 to about $30 typically for an 11 ounce glass. the vast majority of beers are in the $12 to $15 a glass price range. our waitress was not very knowledgeable about the beers which was a disappointment. the menu is small and very mussel centric. my guest and i both ordered them. we ordered the classic version (white wine, garlic herbs etc) and the shroom (mushrooms cream etc). we waited about 50 minutes for our food to arrive. the presentation is great - a saucepan opened in front of you to reveal the steaming mussels. in both cases the broth was a huge disappointment. the shroom broth was bland missing the rich notes of pancetta and truffle promised in the menu. the classic had a sharpness to it which was not pleasant (too much lemon and an imbalance caused by the white wine). normally the broth is the best part of this dish. not here. to make matters worse, the dish was served with a warm bread that tasted like it was purchased in the freezer section of the local supermarket. where was the delicious crusty baguette that i was expecting? this was bread that no self-respecting european should ever serve. accompanying themusselswas a serving of "frites" (french-fries). unfortunately, all though nice and crisp they were over salted.musselsand "frites" is one of the most common and popular dishes in belgium. there are plenty of restaurants in the area that do a good job with this dish. mussel bar, which specializes in the dish does not. even over looking the wait for the table, the wait for our entrees, the glass of ice cold water that the waitress spilt on me and the expensive beer i would still skip this place!

fantastic beers...knowledgeable staff...fantasticmusselsand pizza was delicious!