"Oh my God" were the only words I could think before, and after eating at The Melting Pot last night. Seventy eight dollars to feed two people, and that doesn't even account for the multiple beers I would have to drink to forget about how much we would be spending. However I sucked in my cheap skate ways and told Laura that we could celebrate another wonderful Saturday together by sharing my first experience at a fondue restaurant. The basic tenants of which are that there is a stove top at every table, which they place a pot on top of to cook your food right in front of you.
When we were seated the hostess asked right away if we had been there before, to which we replied that Laura had been with her brother on a few occasions but it was my first time. When our server came over he had already been informed of my new comer status and was very helpful and patient in allowing us time to choose our courses. When asked if we were there to celebrate a special occasion I replied, "Yes we're celebrating it being Saturday" as Laura went on to say "Yes, we are celebrating a bunch of things".
We take the opportunity to celebrate every day, however the "bunch of things" she referred to were me getting hired at a very prestigious computer company here in Austin, her being 9 weeks away from giving birth and the both of us being excited over what a great day we had wandering the Zilker Botanical Garden and Art on 5th Galleries earlier in the day. So we deserved a delicious dinner to celebrate such wonderful happenings.
When I say delicious it hardly gives credit to just how amazing everything we ate last night was. We were completely enthralled from our first course of Traditional Swiss Cheese Fondue which was a mixture of Gruyère and Emmenthaler Swiss cheeses together with white wine (which we 86ed for obvious reasons), garlic, nutmeg, lemon and Kirschwasser to the grand finale dessert The Flaming Turtle, which they consider Fondue Candy. It’s an irresistible combination of milk chocolate, caramel and candied pecans flambéed tableside.
As for the cheese platter it came with apples, mixed veggies, and three types of bread. A costumer next to us must have also been new because when he was told about the apples and cheese he proclaimed "What the fuck?! Apples and cheese that sounds delicious!" Which had us cracking up. As for the chocolate fondue it was served with strawberries, bananas, graham and Oreo covered marshmallows, cheese cake, pound cake and rice crispy treats! It was a smorgasbord of wonderful foods plated in a majestic manner which you then dipped in cheese and later chocolate, how have I never been here before?!
In between we ordered a Ceasar and Spinash and Mushroom Salad which were a tad small in quantity but made up for it entirely with the quality. As for out entrees I went with a meal called The French Quarters and Laura ordered a simple side of raviolis. I had no idea that when you ordered meats they came to you raw! It became my responsibility to cook the meats in a oil concoction placed on the stove top. When my eight little pieces of chicken, four pieces of steak and four Andouille sausage slices came out to me the first thing I thought was "That's all?"
After eating only half of them I was completely full though. The entire process of cooking each piece gave my stomach ample time to register the food it was eating and let me know that I had surely had enough. Even though when a steak or chicken breast is served to me normally I can eat twice as much, it has more to do with the speed at which I scarf it down that allows me to stomach so much food. We also had a nice side of vegetables with our meal which we let sit in the pot and cook slowly throughout the meal. Of course like I mentioned earlier I had to have at least two Fat Tire Amber Ale's with my meal and even with that all accounted for the check ended up being $85.
We spent an hour and a half slowly enjoying our meal and being thoroughly entertained by the entire process. At any other restaurant I feel the urgency of the server to get us fed and gone in order to move on to the next table of tippers. However here our server was never in any rush to move us to the next course and we were given the full opportunity to enjoy our meal and our time together. The $100 bill I slipped in to the check holder was well worth it considering the fact that I am hardly hungry 14 hours later as I write this review. Well fed, completely satisfied and able to proclaim that I have been to a fondue restaurant in my life time!
The Melting Pot
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