I will only do this once and a while, but this is a post about a chain restaurant. That is because experiences can be so different at different locations of chain restaurants and I like to support local restaurants, but I will limit my post to the Melting Pot located in St Petersburg. My family and I have wanted to try this place for quite some time, but we just never quite got around to it. Finally, we checked it out over the Memorial Day weekend.
First of all, the place is huge. It is made up of several rooms, and we were led to one near the back. Each table has one or two cook tops, depending upon the size of your party. Our table had only one cook top and this is where you will have your fondue and cook your food. Your party will have to agree on the fondue and cooking style for your entree because you will all be sharing the same cooking pot. Not a problem for us, but maybe a problem for others if they have widely differing tastes. We ordered a bottle of Riesling, a German white wine, to go with our meal. For fondue, we went with the Traditional Swiss Cheese Fondue. This was delicious and came with green apples, vegetable, and bread for dipping.
The fondue was followed by the entrees. For our cooking style, we chose the oil for frying. The other choice is broths for cooking on you cook top. In case you are wondering, you do cook your own food. This is not something I would enjoy doing all the time, but on that night we just went with the flow. We went with the fondue fusion that was for two, and that included meat, seafood, chicken, and pasta for us to cook. There are batters and sauces for dipping that come with your entree. It was kind of fun to sit there and watch your food cook in the pot and it slows things down, so don't plan to eat in a hurry. Plan on two to three hours if you are going all out. Our main course was followed by dessert. We ordered the dark and white chocolate fondue. This comes with pound cake, cheesecake, brownies, marshmallows, and fruit for dipping. I don't even need to tell you that this was delicious because we are talking about melted chocolate, after all.
Overall, service was nice here and the food was good. That being said, it was more of an experience than anything, and it is not someplace I would go on a regular basis. Why? Well, you do have to cook your own food. Fun to do it once, but on a regular basis, that defeats the purpose of going out. I might go back just to do drinks and the cheese fondue, because you don't cook that yourself. Overall, our favorite parts of the meal were the cheese fondue and the chocolate fondue. Good experience.
The Melting Pot
2221 4th St. N
St. Petersburg, FL 33704
727-895-6358
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