Do you ever have one of those days where you wake up in the morning and disaster after disaster happens? You just want to crawl into the nearest hole and stay there curled up all day long? That's the kind of morning that I was having yesterday. As I mentioned in my last entry I've been trying really hard to lose weight, working out, watching every calorie etc. L sent me a text message on Monday saying that she couldn't go out to eat that night but she would be available on Tuesday. So I was determined to make it out last night. It was my day to cheat! I had macadamia nut cookies at work and drowned myself in my sorrows. And begrudgingly got ready to go out to eat.
Our journey this week led us to The Melting Pot. Yet again another chain restaurant that opened up in our area. It's a fondue experience! It just opened last Wednesday so it was brand new. I was a little nervous because of that but it exceeded my expectations. Before I left the house last night I looked at Chowhound to see what information I could find on it from other people who had been there. I had heard everything from it was a horrible experience to my husband was sent to the hospital with a burn etc. After reading that I had this awful feeling in my stomach that I made the wrong decision for us to go there.
Enough rambling. C and I arrived at 6:PM and met up. We were greeted by someone at the door, ushered in and taken to our booth. The decor in the restaurant was dark and formal. They had, what looked like, a very impressive wine room. We sat at our booth and in the center of a table was an induction burner with a pot on it, it looked to me like it was a double boiler. C and I began to peruse the menu, which was very confusing, many different choices and all very expensive. C ordered an Appletini, there was no doubt in my mind this was a drinking night for me as well, I ordered the same. After I had ordered it I spotted something else on the menu that I was interested in, a strawberry and basil lemonade. It was made with strawberry vodka, lemonade and basil leaves. I put that in the back of my mind, deciding it was a two drink night.
L showed up, our Waiter explained the complicated menu to us, and we ordered. We ordered a three course menu for two and then added on one entrée. So we all got cheese fondue, a salad, main course, and dessert. The cheese fondue came out, it was mixture of cheddar cheese, beer, garlic and seasonings. To dip in the fondue we got apples, bread, cauliflower and broccoli I believe. It was pretty good. My favorite was the bread!
Next were salads. I ordered a spinach and mushroom salad, it was served with spinach, mushrooms, roma tomatoes, bacon and warm burgundy shallot vinaigrette. It was delicious but it was the only salad that was not dressed when it came to the table. The server dressed it when he got there. I would of liked it better if he had left the dressing and let me dress it myself. He put too much on it.
Our entrées came next and I was underwhelmed at the amount of food. We had ordered the fondue feast that came with shrimp, marinated pork loin, chicken, rigatoni, ravioli and sirloin. We also ordered another entrée that came with more shrimp and sirloin. Now everything came out raw, it was just cut up and marinated in the kitchen, makes me think the kitchen staff might be minimal in a place like this. We were expected to cook it all in the bouillon that was made at the table. So I would of like to have seen more food, for the price. We had a great time with cooking our dinner, often times we would put our skewers in the fondue pot and we would lose what we put on it, we had shrimp down, ravioli down, vegetables down etc. But it made it for a more enjoyable experience, especially after two drinks. At this point I had all ready ordered and tried the strawberry, basil lemonade. It was delightful, tasted like a non frozen strawberry daiquiri to me. As we were discussing our entrées I thought to myself is this way of serving food sanitary? You have raw chicken on the same plate as raw beef, fish, and pork. How do you know that you get your chicken cooked to a temperature that is safe to eat? I wonder how many cases of food borne illness they've gotten at this place? I just looked at the menu on their website and they do have the typical disclaimer about eating undercooked meat, fish, poultry. But I thought that was interesting.
Dessert was by far the best part of the meal. We got a chocolate fondue that is flambéed and then Oreo cookies are added to it. Then out came a plate of rice krispy treats, cheesecake (not easy to dip), pound cake, strawberries, bananas and mini brownies. It was like heaven on earth!
Then the lowest part of the evening comes, the check. It ended up being $50 per person for the whole experience. I think what you have to remember about this is that you are paying for the experience. The meal took two hours from start to finish. While the food was the focus, this communal experience brought out more conversation than normal nights. It didn't feel as rushed as other nights, usually we are out of there in about an hour. For me, it ended up being the perfect evening after a unusually rough day. It's always great to be surrounded by people who you admire and cherish. Who would of thought a year after working with each other L, C and I would be MAKING the time to spend together. :)
