Pot of Luck

Yin and Yang top left, Filet Mignon with potatoes and vegetables top right

Erin PembrokeFreelance WriterMarch 2, 2014 | 8 p.m.

CORAL SPRINGS, Florida – The nicely decorated and distinct European style restaurant, The Melting Pot, is unique and will provide you with a rare experience. The Melting Pot offers different types of fondue, an interesting way to have your food cooked, and several tasty cocktails and desserts.

The way The Melting Pot works is that you have four courses through out your dinner; from an appetizer (usually fondue of some sort) to a dessert. The Melting Pot is different than a majority of restaurants because you have to cook your main course or entrée. The waitress walks up to your table and turns on the built-in stove that is located on the top of your table. Next, the waitress brings out a pot with broth or water inside it while you choose your entrée.

When the pot is hot and the liquid is boiling, the waitress comes out with your un-cooked meal (even if it is meat). You have to place the meal in the pot at different times while using the suggested cooking time that the waitress give you. After the food is cooked, you have to “fish” or “scoop” you food out of the pot with a spoon and place it on your plate. You keep doing this until all of the items of your entrée are cooked. Next, allow your food to cool off and then enjoy eating your meal. Lastly, you get to pick your dessert which can consist of chocolate such as the Flaming Turtle (milk chocolate, caramel and candied pecans flambéed) Cookies N’ Cream Marshmallow Dream (dark chocolate and marshmallow cream flambéed and topped with pieces of delicious Oreo cookies), and the Chocolate Fondue.

The course started off with the Yin and Yang cocktail which is a balance of dark and white chocolate fondue in artfully designed as a yin and yang in a cocktail glass. The drink was more than scrumptious in taste and exquisite in appearance. The Yin and Yang is a heavenly chocolate decadence that leaves the drinker wanting to drink three to five of these drinks. It is by all means, rated five starts in my book. The cocktail was followed by the Wisconsin Trio Cheese Fondue as an appetizer. The Wisconsin Trio Cheese Fondue has Fontina, Butterkäse and buttermilk bleu cheeses with white wine, scallions and a hint of sherry. It has a smooth and soft taste that does not taste or consist of any sharp cheese. It is a different taste yet some can be indifferent to it since the taste did not stand or pop out in your mouth.

The salad was skipped for this food-tasting which leaves us at the entrée. The entrée of choice was the Filet Mignon with potatoes and vegetables cooked using the Bourguignonne cooking style. The Bourguignonne is a European cooking style that uses cholesterol-free or 0g trans-fat canola oil that is served with tempura and sesame batters. This Filet Mignon was quite distinct because not only was it low in fat, it was also cooked in a boiling pot as opposed to in an oven. However, by having the Filet Mignon cooked in and “fished” from a pot, it lost some of its seasoning and could use additional flavoring. The potatoes and vegetables came out fine.

In the end, The Melting Pot should be divided into several categories: interior design, appetizer, alcoholic beverages, entrée, desserts and overall score. The interior design deserves 5 stars. The appetizer gets 3 stars while the alcoholic beverages proudly deserve 5 stars. The entrée receives a rating of 3 stars while the dessert is awarded 5 stars. The overall score is would have been 4 stars had it not been for the complexity of choosing the entrees and set-up for the meal.

The reason for this overall score is because if one is on a date or out with a friend and both of you have different tastes, this can be a problem in choosing the type of appetizer or fondue since the fondue is shared among the two people and the same goes with the cooking style of your main entrée. Therefore, it is best if you know your date really well or are married to them, since the meal requires sacrifice and compromises of tastes, cooking style and can be over-whelming to people eating there for the first time. Thus, the overall score for The Melting Pot is 3.5 and the best word of advice is to bring your significant other whom you have been with for a while or your spouse.