No more. These days the Melting Pot staff has its act together, and minor problems such as snotty maître d's are dealt with effectively (apparently, the offending group of angst-ridden high school greeter-seaters I encountered a few years ago was fired en masse). The service has also speeded up: Although a meal there used to take upwards of three hours, the staff has now pared down the time for a meal to about two. Today the only problem is getting into the place, which for a weekend night sometimes takes a few weeks of advance planning.
But it's well worth the effort, especially if you can be seated in one of the little side rooms. Not that other tables aren't almost as inviting: The Melting Pot occupies an old Carnegie library and features many dark-cornered, candlelit dining areas. Cozy wing chairs on wheels and several fireplaces complete the library ambience. But instead of cuddling up with a good book, you can cozy up to a warm pot of fondue.
As at La Fondue, the new fondue spot downtown (see review, this issue), the Melting Pot gives you the option of doing separate entrees for everyone or taking advantage of the "fondue for two" option. (Does anyone at Melting Pot headquarters care that La Fondue's menu looks so verrrry familiar?) Two of us went for the twin lobster-tail combo meal ($67) that started with a traditional Swiss-cheese fondue -- Melting Pot also offers a Swiss cheese fondue that's minus the Kirschwasser, as well as a cheddar version and a jalapeño-laced one -- that came with bread, vegetables and apples. The cheese fondue was well-blended and obviously based on a solid recipe, and while our server felt compelled to explain everything because my companion had never been there before, it was with less condescension than I'd experienced in the past.
I'd remembered the mushroom salad as being an assault of fungi on greens, and the chef's salad sounded heavy, so we both went with the California salad, a nice mix of baby greens, romas, walnuts and Gorgonzola topped with a well-balanced sweet-and-sour raspberry vinaigrette.
Then came the fondue bourguignonne, a French fondue style that involves cooking meats and vegetables in a broth or oil. Since there were only two of us and just one burner on the table, we could use only one method, so we went with the court bouillon. The delicious, concentrated vegetable-based broth soaked into all the vegetable, sirloin, chicken and shrimp pieces that appeared along with the cute little lobster tails, which had been cut into manageable chunks and placed back in the tail for a lovely presentation. More flavor came from a fine assortment of dipping sauces: an herb-packed drawn butter, a fiery cocktail, a teriyaki, an addictive sweet curry and a thick, rich ball of doctored-up sour cream for the vegetables.
After that, dessert was a disappointment. Although the chocolate-with-nuts goo was tasty, there wasn't anything particularly interesting to dip into it. The marshmallows seemed as though they'd been lolling about a hot kitchen, since they were already mushy when they arrived; the pound cake and cheesecake weren't very good quality. So we simply grabbed two spoons and went straight for the melted chocolate.
And with that, all my earlier objections to the Melting Pot melted away.
