The Melting Pot: Best place you've never been

So I recently went out for my 1 year anniversary dinner to a place called "The Melting Pot." I had never been, but my girlfriend assured me that I would love it. Basically its a fondue-based restaurant, consisting of cheese fondue, chocolate fondue, and then a main course which you cook yourself at your table. After my experience here, I have nothing but an amazing review to give. If you've never gone, you are seriously missing out, and here is why:

We arrived at the restaurant at around 6:30 for our 6:45 reservation, just enough time to grab a beer at the bar before dinner. Though it seemed like a relatively small place, it is set up perfectly. You are led to your table through some sort of maze in the back, and when you sit down, it's almost like you have an entire room to yourself. You cannot see anyone else or their table, pretty sweet if you ask me. When we found our table, we were greeted with this

I had asked for a rose to be placed on the table, but was actually surprised by how nice it looked in the vase with whatever else they put in with it. The booth was a small, U shaped booth so you didn't have to awkwardly stare at your date the entire night. You could have separation, or you could sit right next to your date comfortably. If you look on the right of the photo, it shows how much of the other tables you can see down the hallway, almost nothing at all. Only downside of the maze set up was trying to leave.. we were wandering around until someone was able to direct us to the exit.

What we decided to do was their signature four course custom meal. This lets you choose a cheese fondue to start, followed by a personal salad. Then the main course is shared and consists of some sort of meat or seafood, and the desert is your choice of a chocolate fondue. Here is what we went with, and all of it was amazing.

Cheese fondue: Boston lager cheddar cheese fondue
Salad: Wisconsin wedge salad / California salad
Main dish: Angus sirloin, bbq pork, shrimp, chicken, and teriyaki sirloin
Desert: Chocolate s'mores fondue

Starting with the cheese, the waitress actually makes this fondue in front of you. She dumped a bunch of boston lager in the bowl, followed by cheddar cheese and some sort of garlic, bacon, and onion mixture which she heated until the cheese was smooth. They gave us 3 different kinds of bread, chopped granny smith apples, and a few different vegetables to dip with the cheese fondue. I could have made a meal out of just the cheese and bread combination, as it was completely delicious. As for the apple and cheese, it was surprisingly good. I would have never thought to dip cut up apples in this cheese mixture. Before we could even make a dent in this fondue, the waitress had already come back with our salads.

I ordered the Wisconsin wedge salad, which was served with tomatoes, bacon, Gorgonzola cheese, and topped with a parmesan peppercorn dressing. Already feeling like I ate too much of the cheese fondue, the salad was a nice light course to get us ready for the main course. However, it was surprisingly a good size, not one of those "personal" portions that could serve a 4 year old.

After we finished our salads, they brought out the main course. I wasn't aware before, but you get to cook the meal yourself. You can see the 5 different meats, and each of them can be dropped into the hot broth for 2 minutes until they are cooked. Don't worry, you don't have to have a stop-watch out for every piece, as you can't really over-cook these. You also get to choose which kind of broth you want to cook in, we went with some kind of Caribbean broth that they called "Mojo." It kind of took me back to Jamaica.

 They also gave us some potatoes, broccoli, and mushrooms to cook in the broth. You could just throw these in the pot all at once, and scoop them out after about 4-5 minutes of cooking and they were ready to eat. Now probably one of the best part of this course was the sauces, the 6 containers in the back. Each sauce was paired with either a piece of meat or a vegetable, and they really kicked the meal up a notch.

So after playing around with the food and vegetables for a little bit, I finally managed to get some pieces cooked and on my plate with the sauces. Curry sauce, sweet and sour sauce, teriyaki sauce, a blue cheese dip, horseradish-cocktail sauce, and what they called their "green goddess" sauce. I don't know what was in the green goddess sauce, but it took the vegetables to another level. The curry sauce didn't do much for me, but the horseradish-cocktail sauce with the shrimp was amazing. Spicy kick to an old-time favorite. And of course the sweet and sour sauce was banging with the pork and chicken. I felt like a little kid the way I was trying out these sauces. I was trying all of the different combinations, ooh-ing and ahh-ing when I got a combination that tasted good. My girlfriend was pretty embarrassed, but how could I care when the food was tasting this good!?

Fire!

No, we didn't screw up our dinner and set the place on fire. This was the waitress making our s'mores chocolate fondue. She dumped a little Bacardi 151 on top and lit it on fire for a bit of a show.

 Instead of just getting a plain, boring chocolate fondue, we decided to go with their "S'mores chocolate fondue," which was amazing. With the base of chocolate, they added a bunch of marshmallow and then swirled in some graham cracker bits and proceeded to melt it all down to gooey awesomeness. I expected to have a few things to dip with this fondue, strawberries, bananas, etc. Nothing crazy.. but I was completely wrong.

Here is the platter for the s'mores chocolate fondue. It had strawberries, bananas, marshmallows (two covered in oreo bits, and two covered in graham cracker bits), rice crispy treats, pound cake, brownies, and a slice of cheese cake. Woah, I think I just got diabetes from naming all of those. The strawberries and bananas were awesome as expected. The cheesecake and pound cake bites were phenomenal. My personal favorite was the rice crispy treats. Although I'm pretty sure each one of those I ate will give me a few cavities, it was so sweet and so good. By the time we were done with the chocolate fondue, it was 8:30 and we couldn't even move. We had been at this restaurant eating for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. Now that may seem like a long time, but we never really had to wait, and it was entertaining the entire time.

Of course I had to drink.. so I did what they call their "beer flight." With every course, I got a different 6 ounce beer to go with it. With the cheese, I had a Boston Lager. I was given a Sierra Nevada pale ale with my salad which went really well. With the main course, I was given a Stone IPA, which I had always wanted to try.. and it was awesome. Very well paired with the meat. With the chocolate fondue, they sent out a Rogue chocolate stout, which was also very tasty. How could you not like chocolate dipped food washed down with a chocolate stout? Easy match. After I had finished all my beer, I still wanted something else. Feeling fancy enough at this place, I ordered a Snickers martini. It had Stoli vanilla vodka, Kahlua, Baileys, Disaronno, and Godiva chocolate liquor. It tasted like someone melted a snickers bar, then proceeded to spike it and give it a kick. It was a tasty, boozy way to end the meal.

 

Snickers martini

Now just when we thought we were all done with out meal, a lady came by with a camera and said she was going to take our picture. I know that sports arenas do this, then charge you an obscene amount for a cheap, awful photo. However, this was a complementary service, she made sure the picture was nice, and was back within 5 minutes to give us a framed picture. I was incredibly surprised.

This wasn't the end of our surprises though. Prior to going, we had signed up for their fan club online, which entitled us to a free box of chocolate covered strawberries. They gave us 3 HUGE chocolate covered strawberries: white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. They were to die for. My only complaint was that I couldn't have 1,000 of them.






Overall, this was probably one of my favorite places I have ever been to eat. The food is great, the drinks are great, and the atmosphere is actually quite fun. Keeping me entertained in a restaurant for two and a half hours is a task in itself, let alone making me want to come back.  We also got to take the flower and vase with us. My girlfriend thought she was being sneaky by just grabbing the rose before we left, but then the waiter told us to just take the vase too. A win-win. Although the place is a little pricey and I would be living under a bridge if I ate here regularly (also would weigh 300 pounds), but this is a perfect place for a special occasion. The service was amazing, which is hard to find these days. If you haven't been here yet, I more than highly recommend it.