Fondue - back from the 70's

Last night we went to a new Restaurant in Edmonton called the Melting Pot.  Apparently these have been around in the U.S., but this is the first one to open here.  The premise of the dining experience - Fondue!

Now fondue had its day in the 70's at the  home party.  People would dig out their sunset gold or avacado green fondue sets to have a good time.  Eventually the lowly fondue pot fell out of favour and became fodder for the garage sale.

Well, its back and its being served at the Melting Pot.  Gone are the candles and open flame burners, they have been replaced by an in-table heat source.  The colored pots are now a sleek stainless steel.  But the fondue experience is still much the same. All of the tables in the melting pot are fairly private, with cozy booths for two or private rooms for larger parties.  The staff know their stuff and are busy keeping all of the fondue components moving along.

Because we were with a larger group, all of the parts were pre-ordered, but there are a number of options you can select to customize your fondue experience.  Our evening started with a Cheese course.  I really like cheese, so you can't go wrong here.  The servers make up a number of mixtures, we had a cheddar pot as well as a spinach artichoke mix.  We were brought small plates and bowls of bread, apples taco chips and vegetables.  Each person gets a set of colored fondue forks and an eating fork.  Many of us at the table took a few dips to realize we were supposed to dip with the fondue fork, and them remove the item to your plate and eat with your other fork.  At first we were just eating off our fondue fork and then re-dipping!  GASP..that is the proverbial double dip!  OK, so shoot us, we are fondue newbs.  We got the ettiquite after a few double dips.

Next was the meat course. Our cheese fondue pots were replaced with hot oil and one with steaming vegetable broth with citrus.  They also provided two types of batter for dipping and a plate of assorted hunks of meat - chicken, beef, shrimp and salmon.  We were also given a number of dipping sauces for said meat.  I have to say, I enjoyed the cheese course, but for me the meat course was nothing to write home about.  Not because the restaurant didn't do a great job of the set-up, but because a hunk of plain meat dipped in hot oil isn't really all that great.  In some cases the batter would fall off in the pot with all the fondue fork fury!   The oil cooked the meat a bit better, it only needed 2 minutes, but the broth was tastier with the veggies (like mushrooms or broccoli).

Then it was time for the chocolate!  Now we are talking.  We had one that was chocolate with some penut butter stirred in, and a second pot that was white chocolate and banana.  The servers brought us fresh forks and some plates of dippables that included strawberries, banana, marshmallow, brownie, cheesecake and pineapple.  This was really tastey - how can you go wrong here. 

As I say, there were many options so you could really customize to what you like best.  They also had some really nice looking drinks.  Not cheap, but pretty impressive and apparently delicious.  One that was popular was the Yin & Yang.  This just looked amazing and was concocted with White Godiva Liqueur, Creme de CaCao and Ice Cream. 

This is definitely the kind of place to go to do something different, the whole process takes a bit of time, so you will have a leisurely dinner.  Personally my preference was the cheese and chocolate courses.  This isn't a cheap night out, so prepare for at least $50/person but a nice evening out.  I am not sure how long fondue will be here this time around, but this restaurant was packed and is apparently full most of the time.  So the next time you are looking for something a little bit different on a night out, give it a try.