This past Saturday my husband and I went to The Melting Pot to celebrate our anniversary. If you have never been to The Melting Pot or even heard of it, it is a fondue restaurant that offers cheese, main course, and chocolate fondue. And boy, do you get your fill of fondue. I chose The Melting Pot for our anniversary because first and foremost it is a romantic experience from start to finish. I also chose it because, being 9 months pregnant, the only fun thing I can do is eat. And it is really a great place to eat.
First of all, we had my parents watch Peanut for the night and the next morning so we could take our time at dinner and enjoy ourselves. We sat at a very private booth off of the bar and for the most part were by ourselves. That really set the mood. We decided on the specialty "Pacific Islands Big Night Out" for our meal. This includes a cheese fondue course, a salad course, a meats course, and a chocolate fondue course. A ton of food, I know. The cheese included with this was called the Feng Shui Cheese Fondue. It included white wine, mirin, Sake, Gruyere cheese, and horseradish and chive Havarti Cheese. There is a burner in the middle of the table and the server prepares the cheese in a pot in front of you. The burner keeps the cheese nice and melty, perfect for dipping. They provide veggies and different kinds of bread for you to dip in the cheese. This fondue was excellent. Very unique tasting but creamy, a little spicy, and delicious. My husband and I both loved it.
The next course was the salad. We both ordered The Melting Pot Salad with the sweet and tangy house dressing. It was a standard house salad but the dressing was great and the salad included hard boiled eggs, which I love. For the main course we chose the Fondue Fusion with the Bourguignonne style of fondue, which is simply canola oil. The meats included with the Fondue Fusion included lobster tail, sesame crusted teriyaki sirloin, citrus infused pork tenderloin, ahi tuna, garlic chili chicken breast, kiwi lime shrimp, spring vegetable dumplings and fresh vegetables. It also included 2 types of tempura batter and tons of different dipping sauces. It really is a romantic and fun experience cooking your food with your partner, trying different things, and basically sharing the same meal. This is an experience I think is unique to the Melting Pot. We both really loved the main course from start to finish.
The final course was the chocolate fondue. For this we chose the traditional fondue, which was dark chocolate with a swirl of creamy peanut butter. They include pound cake, brownies, rice crispie treats, strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, and chessecake for dipping in this. Let me tell you, this course is heaven. It almost put me over the edge of being full, but not quite. It was so creamy and delicious and the peanut butter added a little extra something that made it extra yummy.
You might be asking yourself, how can they eat this much food? Truth be told, it is a lot of food and you certainly won't leave hungry. But from the beginning of the meal we told our server we were celebrating our anniversary and were in no hurry. This allowed him to pace the meal slowly and allow time to digest in between courses. We found ourselves getting hungry in between courses and that was a good thing. In addition we never felt rushed to get out. I hate when you feel rushed at a restaurant and the server did a great job of matching the pace that we were looking for. From start to finish, we were there for over three hours!!! We were having such a great time that we lost track of the time.
The best part of the meal is that it is affordable. The big night out was only $84 with everything for the two of us. Not including drinks and tip, I find this to be a great value for all the food you get.
All in all, we had a great anniversary dinner. I would recommend The Melting Pot to anyone who is looking to celebrate a special occasion with that special someone. It was romantic, fun, affordable, and most importantly, delicious.
