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The Melting Pot: A Fondue Restaurant
340 S. Main
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
http://www.meltingpot.com/saltlakecity/home.html

My Ratings:

Review Summary:
If you’ve never had a fondue experience or even if you have - dessert fondue at The Melting Pot is a must-do. Their location is prime - near Exchange Place, just off of Main Street in downtown Salt Lake. The simple ambiance of the restaurant combined with the relaxed atmosphere makes this new dining experience and enjoyable one. The servers are friendly, and the deserts are tasty. If I were giving eBay feedback, I’d put A+++++.

My Visit:
So my first contact with The Melting Pot was a couple weeks ago when I was looking through a postcard mailer packet that I received in the mail. On the front of their card it showed swirling chocolate and had a coupon for $10 off. I thought Wow, that’s a great coupon and set it aside. After looking through the coupon pack, I read further on The Melting Pot card, and noticed that the meal per couple was $89. Wow, that’s steep. Though I’ve had fondue before, I’ve never been to a restaurant that was built around fondue. I set it aside, and didn’t think much more about it.

Last week, I was trying to think of a cool place to take my friend for his birthday. Hmmm. What would be a unique and fun place for a birthday? Then I remembered The Melting Pot. It’s so much easier to make myself splurge on something new when it’s for someone else’s special day. So I mentioned the Melting Pot at work, and one of my workmates raved about their chocolate fondue as well as their cheese fondue. So I made a reservation for 4 online.

Though they offered valet parking, I didn’t need to use it – I found a space open on Main Street just a short walk from the restaurant. The ambience in the restaurant was nice – very darkly lit with colors of brown, mustard and deep salmon. They specified a dress code of “business casual” when I made the reservation, and it seemed the majority of the clientele were dressed for going out to a nice place on Friday, and the other half were well, “Utah casual”. I’m surprised when some people think flip flops and tattered shorts are proper attire for an evening out at a $$$ restaurant.

We arrived 15 minutes early for our 8:30pm reservation, and were asked to “wait until” our reservation. At 8:30 we were sat in an area of about 10 booths, one of which remained empty through out whole dinner. (I mention it, because it seems odd that we had to wait until 8:30 when there was space available.) Every table at The Melting Pot has a built-in burner in the center of the table, larger tables have two. The place has a slight funky smell – a blend of cheese and chocolate (go figure). Our waiter greeted us and when finding out it was our first time visiting, he introduced us to the menu and the fondue style of eating. A whole dinner can take over 2 hours he said, as everything I prepared before you in the fondue pot. We ordered a cheese appetizer, which was prepared before us. The waiter told us each ingredient as he put it in the pot. Once it was entirely melted, he brought a selection of vegetables, breads, and chips to dip. It didn’t take long for the 4 of us to clean it up.

After the desert menu was brought to the table, we debated on what chocolate fondue to choose. There are several selections with names like “Yin Yang, Flaming Turtle, and Chocolate S’mores. I let the birthday-boy choose, and he selected Cookies ‘n Cream Marshmallow Dream: Dark chocolate topped with marshmallow cream, flambéed, swirled together and garnished with crushed Oreo cookies. Our waiter arrived with the chocolate in the melting pot, swirled in the marshmallow cream, and then lit it on fire while he place plates before us of fresh strawberries, bananas, pineapple, slices of cheesecake topped with chocolate covered cherries, Oreo dusted marshmallows, pound cake and brownies to dip. So needless to say – it was just as good as it sounds.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Places I've Reviewed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.