***
A while back, I had what were, hands down, the WORST mussels I'd ever had at The Mussel Guys Seafood and Steak Restaurant at Vivocity.
(Photos suck, but they are posted here so I can't be sued for defamation)
I and SUG each had 18 mussels (500g), in Cream sauce ($19.90) and Belgian style (with wine IIRC, $23.90).
Perhaps the mussels were leftovers from the market, for they were small, not fresh and hard to open.
Notice how pathetic the foot is, and its lack of smoothness and regularity
Witness the small size and thinness of the foot
They outdo themselves with one specimen with an even tinier foot
After some wrestling with the fork (notice the puncture marks in the flesh), it still won't come out of the shell. I was also witness to a hitherto unprecedented event - notice the mussel shell to the top left of the punctured one and you will notice that it is chipped; yes, the shell broke when I was wrestling it open.
Eviscerated foot - and it STILL won't come off!
Most of the mussels we got were almost closed, like this one, and had to be pried apart with great difficulty.
The foot sticks to the top of the shell!
The sauces didn't taste very nice either.
In conclusion: Worst. Moules. Ever. (the Frites were alright though) If you want mussels, go to Oosters (at Church Street, around China Square). You pay LESS for BETTER moules, and you get free frites too.
What enraged me even more was that they tried to smoke us, claiming that their mussels were like this because they were live, and as such they held their shells tightly shut (Quoth I: Determining if mussels are fresh - "James Peterson, author of Fish & Shellfish, says the surest way to determine if a mussel is still among the living is to firmly push the shells sideways in opposing directions with your thumb and forefinger (not your pliers). If the mussel is dead, the shells will fall apart in your hand" - so maybe they gave us LIVING mussels). Perhaps they assumed that we had never had live (or even fresh) mussels, which on reflection was a good assumption - no one who has even eaten mussels would even go to The Mussel Guys.
Since then, multiple people have also informed me that their experiences there sucked (and I got complaints about the service too; one said the Dory was quite good though), so it's not just me. Doing a cursory search also reveals mostly bad reviews. That the place still survives after more than a year is testament to Singaporeans' tolerance for bad food.
Cunning Linguist: THEY ARE FUCKING BAD
their service sucks
and their mussels sucks
it was a bad experience la basically
dunno why they're sitll alive
i'm never going back there
i went there twice
and 2nd time there i scolded ***
i was like
DIDNT i SAY WE ARE NEVER COMING HERE AGAIN THE LAST TIME WE WERE HERE?b