A couple weeks ago (yes this post is late), I took my wife out for a night on the town. Actually, it was the next town over from us, which is better because our town bites. For this special evening, I had arranged for us to have dinner at a restaurant she had been wanting to try. Now, while planning a dinner date doesn't seem like a big deal... when you have a 10 year old and a 1 year old... it is a big deal! Because, trying to get some alone quality adult time is incredibly difficult and rare.
The restaurant of choice was a place called, "The Melting Pot". They specialize in "Fondue". I have heard of that word before, and knew it had something to do with like cheeses and sauces, but never really knew exactly what it was all about. Well let me tell you, I was about to find out.
We arrived at the restaurant around 5:45 PM. You may be asking, "Who on God's green earth eats dinner at that time of the day?" That is actually late for us, we usually eat at 5:00 PM.
The host dude escorted us around the dimly lit room, labrynth is more like it, to a secluded hallway with a booth for 2. As we looked at the 10 page menu, the waiter arrived and began to explain to us the menu choices. Eventually we settled on what seemed like a good choice. I would love to spell out what we had, but the menu was in Fru Fru language and I could not begin to spell out the items.
The short of it is, we decided on the $88 "Big Night Out" menu option, since conincidently, we were having our big night out. And no, the $88 is not a typo.
This $88 dinner for 2 included 4-courses.
For our appetizer we had some hot cheese dip.
For our salad, we had a caesar salad.
For our entree', we had filet migon, sirloin, chicken, and porkloin. Since we are both picky eaters, we subbed the shrimp and seafood for more steak and chicken.
For our dessert, we had pure milk chocolate w/ a smidge of peanut butter, brownies, cheesecake, marshmallows, and rice krispy treats.
I remember the most about the dessert, because it was by far the best part of the entire meal.
Overall, the cheese dip appetizer was ok, but not that great. We got a little high falutin on our cheese option. Probably would have been better with just regular cheddar cheese. Also, of the 4 bread options that arrived at our table, only 1 of them really tasted what I would call "good" with the cheese. They also gave us apples and various vegetables (all I tried was celery), and they tasted ok with the cheese. During this portion of the meal, 3 gnats joined us in our booth and throughout the course of this part, they were laid to rest.
My salad was also high falutin, but was decent. During this portion of the meal, 2 gnats joined us in our booth and throughout the course of this part, they were laid to rest.
To this point, everything was progressing kind of as I thought. "Ok, we've had some dip and salad, now it's time for our dinner to come out." This is where I was miseled*** because .... Our entree' platter measured about 14" x 9" and was full of the above mentioned meat cuts... raw. Yes, Raw. We had to cook our meats. I had no idea. The waiter explained to us how to cook them, basically 2 minutes if it walks, and 1.5 minutes for seafood, which had had none of. All the cooking went well.
I would have to say, I really didn't like any of the meat products or the sauces for the main entree'. They weren't bad. I just didn't like any of their flavors. The sauces they brought didn't do any favors I thought either. It just wasn't what I expected for $88.
By far as previously mentioned, the best part is dessert. It was out of this world delicious.
The manager heard us talking about the gnat issue, and gave us a $10 comp card for next time. We will definately be back, but just for dessert. We'll have dinner at Connor's Steakhouse first, then walk over to the Melting Pot.
We were not the only table who had gnat problems. One of them got away, but we did manage to smush 5 of them.
In the end, our dinner experience lasted about 3 hours. Yikes! Just something else to keep in mind if you go there. It's a long event! Be prepared!
*** a few years ago, we were playing "Cranium" at Festivus at Bone's house and one of the cards said something with the word, "Misled" in it, and our lawyer friend pronouned it, "Miseled" [Mize - el -ed], so now, whenever any of us are in a situation other than what we expected we say, "Miseled".
Also during this same game, the word, "Famine" came up, and he pronounced it, FA-MEAN. That's a little more difficult to use in day to day situations. We did morph it to "FA-MEESHED" and that gets used quite regularly.
5 comments:
Curious as to how you were meant to cook the meats? Obviously the cheese fondue was exchanged for a chocolate fondue somewhere between the first course and last, so am to assume that during this transition you were delivered a hot plate of some kind?
Liz and I often do Korean barbecue where the waiter/waitress will bring out the meat that we will grill ourselves, so I'm assuming your entree course was something like that.
We did Korean barbecue at a place in Las Vegas that apparently all the online reviewers had raved about. It was okay but nothing great, in fact neither of us were impressed because every waitress that passed by our table tried to dump all of our meat on the hotplate, whereas Liz and I were taking our time and savoring the fare. But they didn't like that; they wanted us to eat as fast as possible because more customer turnover = more profits.
We've also had 3 hour dinners of our own at a little place in Glendale, CA, called The Tam O'Shanter, mostly because we didn't have the kids so we were able to relax and take our time. Nothing wrong with 3 hour dinners :)
I forgot to mention, our granite table top had a built in like eye to heat the fondue pots on. After the cheese appetizer, the waiter brought all the ingredients to the table and made us the broth to boil the entree meats in. Then after that, he brought out the chcolate pot.
With the meats came maybe 8 skewers so you could cook the meat and vegetables at the same time. Potatoes was our veg.
Ah, gnats. That reminds me of the great experience at Pauli's in Huntsville. So great that I'll never ever go there again.
Seems all fine dining establishments in Huntsville have gnats, and also take 3 hours to eat at.
I'll never forget your #20 fruit and cheese tray, which had like 4 small pieces of cheese and some strawberries.
And my $9 caesar salad consisting on 2 romaine leaves and some sprinkles of parmesan cheese and 2 croutons.
LOL Indeed. That was money... spent.
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