Mussel Inn

Not a pun of my own creation but the name of restaurant that I went to three times over the Christmas period. On the walls are painted great blue cartoon waves. The tables and chairs are made from clean and pleasing pine. Immediately prior to the first of these three most recent visits I had been in the St James Centre; a fetid, marshy place of retail and swarming crowds. The combination of blue waves and crisp pine furniture relieved me of my St James Centre-induced troglodytic hunch and mistrustful countenance and reminded me that our nation is a prosperous archipelago; a place where the sea and its rich bounty is never far away.

A portion of the selfsame bounty is served up in the Mussel Inn nearly every day. The mussel stars. Mussels can be eaten by the (literal) bucket-load or the more manageable plate-load. At lunchtime a plate-load of mussels in one of a variety of simple preparations, some crusty bread, a bowl of chips or a salad, and a bottle of beer, a glass of wine or a soft drink are yours for £7.50. This is called the Lunchtime Quickie and it is thus that the Mussel Inn provides for the impecunious and the stingy.

The mussels are, to a man, plump and healthy (albeit dead, of course). They come plated in piles that are immersed up to about 5cm in a mixture of white wine, cream, shallots and parsley (or some variation on that theme). Other options that I did not eat and that do not follow this pattern include the 'Moroccan' and a preparation involving red peppers. My companion on all three occasions chose the Moroccan. He reported that its ingredients were deserving of companionship with mussels and found that the spiciness varied.

After the meal you are given a hot towel that creates a disquieting smell of nappies. The waiting staff are neither rude nor overly intrusive and obsequious. So pleasing is the experience that it seems to me that there should be modest restaurants serving mussels all over the country. Such places would be at least as deserving of synonymity with Scotland as tartan and shortbread.

There are Mussel Inns on Rose Street in Edinburgh and Hope Street in Glasgow.