Melting Pot

okme2, says:

• Food:

  3/5

• Vibe:

  3/5

• Service:

  3/5

• Value:

  3/5

• Overall:

  3/5

My first time at a fondue place, it was an interesting experience. Definitely not a place to go alone -- a lot of people came in groups or first dates, or double dates.

Menu had a lot of confusing options, but the talkative waiters seem trained to guide you. The no-brainer: pick one of their packages where you get three or four courses. We did the standard four-course "Big Night Out", about $80-$90 for two.

Appetizer was cheese fondue which came with cubes of bread and raw vegetables. I'm not big on vegetables and they were pretty generic: bite-sized pieces of celery, those pre-cut carrots that look like bullets, 1-2 cauliflower florets. Cauliflower was surprisingly good dipped into the cheese, more interesting than the carrots. Oh yeah, chopped apple, too, good because the apple was tart and it stood up to the cheese.

The cubes of bread were boring, like supermarket French bread, fairly soft. If you're going to do soft bread, might as well go with a multi-grain, at least it'd have texture.

They have half a dozen cheese options. We just went with the recommended four-cheese blend so we didn't have to think about it.

There's a hot glass plate built into the tabletop. The waiter brings a steel pot and mixes in ingredients while you watch. For the cheese course, it was grated cheeses, Worcestershire, spices, etc.

Entree consists of various meats and seafood you cook in a hot broth. The most expensive choice ($92 per couple) had lobster tail. But the cheapest still had a LOT of food: 6+ bite-sized pieces of sirloin, 6+ pieces of filet mignon, marinated pork, marinated chicken, 8+ medium-sized shrimp. They all take about 2 minutes each to cook. We started cooking them one by one and realized we'd be there all night, so we eventually just threw in all the pieces of meat, and hoped for the best. None were overcooked.

They also had veggies -- mushroom caps, broccoli florets, nearly-cooked potato wedges that you were just basically heating up.

One observation: Having to cook the meal yourself really slows you down and that makes you pretty full.

Dessert fondue was: chocolate. They had 8+ varieties -- one w/ a spoon of crunchy peanut butter, another dark chocolate, another tiramisu, another white chocolate bananas foster. Straight milk chocolate is the best. For dipping, you get cut-up strawberries (pretty dried out), sliced bananas, coconut-coated marshmallows, brownie and pound cake squares, and Rice Krispie treats.

All in all, an interesting novelty, I get why people go in groups, and I can see bringing a date or a child just for dessert.