If you happen to spend a lot of time staring at the back of Baltimore cars, you will notice a variety of bumper paraphernalia. There are political stickers, those notifying the world that the occupant’s child is an honors student (again!), those trumpeting their academic affiliation, the ‘Believe’ stickers (for Washingtonians, Believe is a Baltimore campaign to inspire the populace to envision a city without crime and poverty, it has not worked yet) and those stating “Eat Bertha’s Mussels.”
Never having been one to resist the arguments of a bumper sticker, I promptly took myself down to Bertha’s Mussels, a Baltimore institution in the Fells Point distinct.
Bertha’s resides in a lovely building at 734 S Broadway. The front room is a low and smoky pub, followed by a large and airy dining room outfitted in solid oak. While the menu is varied and offers a good deal of interesting appetizers and main courses, everything except for the mussels is rather expensive, and honestly, if you are going to eat anything else, why are you bothering to come? Needless to say, we all had mussels. The portions were generous, huge plates of steaming mussels and various dipping sauces, including garlic butter and spinach, Spanish sauce, garlic butter and anchovies, etc. For the healthier version, garlic broth is available in exchange for butter.
While the mussels were meaty and filling, we found them to be a little
ubbery, not as tender as we were expecting. The sauces were delicious (we went for garlic broth and spinach, and Spanish sauce), subtly seasoned and light enough not to cover the slight flavor of the mussel, and there was more then enough to use up an entire container of sauce with one order of sauce.
However, we left not entirely satisfied. Our stomachs were full of bread and mussels and garlic, but somehow we were unfilled. Two of the three of us had never eaten mussels before, and left feeling as though, while we were glad we had done it once, we never had to do it again. The third felt as thought she had fulfilled her annual obligation and would not need to consume a plate of the creatures for another year. While I would recommend eating at Bertha’s to others should they have a desire for mussels, to those looking for a nice, non-mussel specific meal there is no need to obey the bumper sticker, and eat Bertha’s mussels.