For mussel lovers, these are the good old days! Mussels have been the most underappreciated shellfish for as long as folks have been eating seafood. Historically, the complaints ran from grittiness to strong, bitter flavor or to uneven supply. As a result, mussels were bottom shelf shellfish.
A serving of mussels at The Broken Spoke: Katherine Hook photos
Those low expectations fueled an acceptance of less than wonderful mussels everywhere except within a few miles of the coastal villages where they were harvested. Since mussels are not Gulf Coast seafood, Houston diners typically were served tough, gritty little black bivalves -- when we were unlucky enough to get them. Until recently that was our lot as southern seafood fans and then overfishing came to the rescue! That non sequitur ironically provided the driving force behind the new golden age for mussels.

Wild mussels behave more like sedentary oysters than highly mobile scallops or clams. They firmly attach to a hard surface, usually on or near the bottom of ocean water close to the beach. They are fed by the ebb and flow of the tide, which brings their planktonic food right to them. Their food supply is the problem because maybe more than any other food, bivalve mollusks like oysters, clams and mussels are what they eat. The turbulent near-shore water delivers lots of sand and grit along with tasty bits of plankton so our little black filter-feeding friends stock up on a pretty good load of crunch. To make matters worse, runoff from populated areas along the shore delivered all sorts of contaminants that mussels indiscriminately filter up along with their food.

Growing close to shore turned out to be a problem for mussel populations because they were simply too easy to harvest. As their populations shrunk, fishermen harvested them from less and less desirable places and we got more crunch plus more contamination. Eventually various government agencies established leases where mussels could be privately farmed. That really helped with overfishing for a while, but demand grew for inexpensive shellfish and soon the farms were not meeting supply needs.

That brings us to the present and the really good news; mussel farming has moved offshore away from all that grit and contamination. Production capacity has risen dramatically and harvests are staggered through the year so we can avoid those bitter and strong flavored spawning mussels. Now, those improvements plus advances in transportation technique have excellent quality blue, Mediterranean and Puget Sound mussels arriving in Houston daily. The only remaining trick is to find someone who knows how to prepare them.
The mussels are served with a Stella.
With seven different preparations on the menu, the Broken Spoke is the go-to place for high quality mussels in Houston. I’m not a cycling enthusiast so all the bike stuff is kind of wasted on me, but the mussels held my attention quite well.

Broken Spoke is a Belgian joint with the menu in French or is it Belgian? I don’t have a clue here, but you know how everything culinary sounds better when it’s in French, right? Well, the French-speaking owner and diners provide cultural enhancement while you slurp mussels in their steaming sauce. Saturday night we joined a packed house for some mussel fun and we were seated by a pair of French-speaking girls who did their very best to make sure that everyone was aware of their Frenchiness. Since their table was maybe 18 inches from ours, our awareness level could not have been any higher.

Midway through our second Stella Artois, the girls were having dessert and our owner/host Catherine Duwez was patiently and skillfully dealing with their requests. Their crepes arrived and were appealing enough to distract me from my outstanding moules mariniere, but they weren’t adequate for the girls and back they went. Round two also was summarily rejected. Finally, Duwez went to the kitchen and personally created round 3, which was received with much delight.

I still can’t figure out why they sent the first two rounds of amazing-looking crepes back to the kitchen. Maybe it was their need to live up to the French cultural stereotype? Regardless, Duwez could not have been more gracious and the girls left smiling.

I did get a tip that the lunch seatings at the Broken Spoke are a bit easier to come by and less theatrical, if having all the impromptu entertainment would diminish your mussel enjoyment. I also would suggest the avocado hummus with lunch; it’s really good.

We enjoyed the entire extracurricular goings on, but even without the cultural entertainment, my mussel experience would have been exceptional. The mussels were plump and flavorful without a hint of grit. There was a nice variation in size, which adds some interest as well as texture and flavor variation. The white wine based steaming liquid bathed the beautiful bivalves with just enough added richness to lift the meal to “we have to come back and do this again soon” status. And, we weren’t done yet.

There was no need to send our Crepe Mikado anywhere. The tender, paper thin crepe hid a scoop of delicious vanilla ice cream. Molten chocolate rolled lava-like down the slope of the crepe between dollops of whipped cream. Accompanied by our favorite coffee, Lavazza, the crepes were an eventful way to cap the meal.

I feel a bit guilty for distracting you with asides when clearly the mussels were the star of the show. A testimony to one area of aquaculture that not only provides a sustainable seafood product, but it does so in a way that is superior to that nature alone provides. It’s the perfect ingredient to place in the hands of a skilled chef and that’s exactly what I found at the Broken Spoke.