Alright, this is my first entry, so I had a bit of an internal battle as to which restaurant I should write about. Did I mention in my Intro that I eat out a lot? Anyway, what emerged triumphant was, oddly enough, not exclusively a Utah restaurant. Two weeks ago, I was trying to decide just where to take my beautiful wife for our anniversary, and The Melting Pot was inevitably suggested by more than a few family members and friends. As you know, it is impossible to live in Northern Utah and not hear The Melting Pot suggested as a special dining spot about, oh, 5,418 times by now. So I finally caved and made a reservation to “dip into something different”.

Things started out pretty impressive. The girl on the phone sold me on their “rose package” right away. I don’t remember if that is actually what she called it, but it turns out that for 12 bucks you can have a centerpiece which consists of 3 roses in a glass vase. Considering how much money I was already planning on spending, along with the fact that I was an idiot and hadn’t bought the love of my life any flowers yet on our special day, I happily made that purchase. I thought it was a nice touch.

Even though we showed up 15 minutes early, we were lead to our table where, sure enough, 3 roses sat in the center. Sweet. I think I scored some points early on with that one. It wasn’t long before our waitress showed up with a Trainee in tow, who gave us our menus, explained briefly how it works, and took our drink orders. By the time she came back with my first Pepsi (of five), we had decided to go with the Big Night Out, Lobster Indulgence. Might as well go big, right? This came with a cheese fondue, gourmet salad, an assortment of meats, veggies, and sauces as a main course, and chocolate fondue for dessert.

Let me say this real quick: we chose the best cheese fondue that they have available. Although we admittedly didn’t try the others, I don’t see how they could possibly have been as good as the Gran Queso. Then I ordered the Chef’s Salad while my wife chose the Strawberry Almond with a vinaigrette dressing. They were both good, but she liked mine more than hers so we switched. Hey, marriage is all about sacrifice.

Then the main course arrived. Oh boy. This is where things went a little south. You see, at The Melting Pot all your meat comes raw, and part of the experience is cooking it yourself in this broth. We chose the Mojo Style cooking pot, which sounded pretty enticing. Truthfully, it smelled like Cup O’ Noodles. But hey, I like Cup O’ Noodles, so that wasn’t such a bad thing I guess. Just not what I expected. Of all the meats, the shrimp is definitely the best. The lobster was nothing noteworthy and everything else was about average. The high point of the main course was all the dipping sauces. Just about any type of sauce you can think of, to help mask the mediocrity of the actual food.

The fourth and final course was dessert, which resurrected my opinion of this place. The dessert menu is pretty impressive, almost overwhelming, so we finally went with our waitress’s suggestion of Flaming Turtle. It comes with plenty of dippers, but I was pleasantly surprised when the marshmallows turned out to be my favorite.

I was told by a few people that you actually leave still hungry. Not me. Not us. I thought they were going to have to grease the doorways to squeeze me out of there. As good as it had ended up though, I couldn’t completely swallow that little knot that formed in my throat when the bill came. No matter how much you try to prepare yourself beforehand, $130 for dinner after adding tip and subtracting the rose centerpiece is unjustifiable, unless you are a celebrity or have an equivalent salary. Unfortunately, neither is true for me.

What it boils down to: It was certainly a fun and unique experience, but one that Average Joes like me can’t afford with any sort of frequency. I think they could charge nearly half their current prices and still make money. Although they might make less profit per meal, they might also attract twice as many people, and it would balance out. As is, the atmosphere is better than average, while the food is about par. It was good enough, though, that the next day I suggested to a few co-workers that they try it. There just aren’t any other fondue restaurants in Utah, so you gotta break down sooner or later, even if you don’t plan on spending that much on dinner ever again. If I fonDUE it again, it will probably be for the cheese and dessert only.

‘Til we eat again