OUR DINING DISCOVERIES:
 | | Fondue |
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| RESTAURANT: THE MELTING POT
LOCATION: 92 Worcester Road, Framingham 01702
PHONE: 508 875.3115
Review by Richard L. Cravatts
Overall Rating: Four Stars
The rediscovered joy of fondues and the concept of “participation dining,” the festive trend wherein diners do much of the cooking and preparation of the meal themselves.
Food: Three 1/2 Stars
Cook-it-yourself cuisine in a casual, upbeat setting, with numerous options for broths, entrees and cheese and dessert fondues.
Value: Three Stars
Ample portions, with many extras, but at a relatively high per-person charge: Cheese fondues: $14; Entrees: $18 to $28; Entrees for two, $62-64; “Big Night Out,” $84-$96, for two; Dessert fondues: $16, small; $32 regular; Wine bottles: $18-$240.
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Atmosphere: Four Stars
Sleek and contemporary warren of small, intimate rooms with high-backed booths for privacy and food prep on gleaming granite-topped tables.
Service: Four Stars
Enthusiastic service by knowledgeable waitstaff, including some tableside preparations of cheese fondues and helpful hints of selecting and preparing entrees.
Best Dishes: Traditional Swiss cheese fondue; almond and Mandarin orange salad with sweet sesame-spiked dressing; Pacific Rim entrée for two; Flaming Turtle chocolate fondue with milk chocolate, caramel and chopped pecans, flambéed tableside.
Things That Matter: A festive atmosphere where the experience of preparing your own dinners, coupled with a variety of sauces, selections and cooking styles, makes for a different type of night out.
Two retro trends seem to have converged at The Melting Pot in Framingham: the rediscovered joy of fondues and the concept of “participation dining,” the festive trend wherein diners do much of the cooking and preparation of the meal themselves, right at their tables. That concept has seen the Melting Pot, a chain that started in 1975 in Maitland, Florida, burgeon into a thriving enterprise of some 100 locations in 33 states, including the Framingham location about halfway up the Jordan’s Furniture mountain.
The 180-seat restaurant is contemporary and sleek, with high-backed booths in warren-like rooms that offer intimacy and privacy, as well as glistening granite-topped tables, each with its own electric burner. Knowledgeable waiters help guests choose meal options, including cooking styles, sauces and entrée selections and also guide diners through the technical know-how to dunk, dip and simmer.
Most people’s thought of fondue reflexively goes to the Swiss and their silken, melted and rich combination of Gruyére and Emmenthaler cheeses, white wine, garlic, nutmeg, lemon and Kirschwasser, and that choice is here at Melting Pot, one of five cheese fondue options ($14). The Wisconsin Trio fondue blends Fontina, buttermilk bleu and Butterkase cheeses, and the Fiesta fondue gives a nod to Mexico with its cheddar, jalapeno and salsa flavors; this version is also served with tortilla chips as opposed to unlimited bread cubes, vegetable pieces and apple slices—as are the other versions.
Participation dining, of course, means that there’s a leisurely process to a meal here, including some lessons from servers about which color-coded fondue fork to use to spear morsels before they are plunged into the bubbling pots, what condiments might taste best with what dinner selections and how to avoid mishaps over the fondue pot.
One can choose a cheese fondue and then skip right to the much-anticipated, hedonistic chocolate fondues (more about that later), or make a feast out of the evening with a cheese fondue, salad, entrée selections and the stunningly-rich desserts. In fact, the Melting Pot has thoughtfully made it simple to enjoy this exact banquet for the senses in what they call their “Big Night Out,” four course dinners that include cheese fondue, salad, a selection of entrées and a dessert fondue. The “Fondue Feast” ($84 a couple) includes a bountiful platter of filet mignon, Ahi tuna, white shrimp, teriyaki-marinated sirloin, sweet curry chicken breast, chicken vegetable potstickers and slices of potato, mushroom and broccoli; the “Fondue Fusion” option ($92 per couple) includes the addition of a lobster tail, and the “Lobster Indulgence” option ($96 per couple) is all of the above with two lobster tails for simmering in the bubbling pots.
Individual entrees are also available, such as The French Quarter ($22), with Cajun-seasoned shrimp, chicken breast, tenderloin and rich and spicy Andouille sausage; teriyaki-marinated sirloin ($20), or filet mignon medallions (6 oz. $24; 9 oz. $28).
Each table selects one cooking style for preparing the entrees, allowing some customization of the meals—another aspect to the do it yourself cooking trend that appeals to many adherents. The Bourguignonne offers the ability to cook European-style in cholesterol-free canola, and this option also allows diners to dip meat and fish in a batter before they are plunged into the simmering oil. The other styles—court bouillon, coq au vin and a Caribbean-seasoned “Mojo”—are all broths and provide a lighter, healthier choice for cooking the foods, and certainly, in the case of the delicate lobster, tuna and shrimp, a more appealing technique.
When the uncooked dinner selections come to the table, they are also accompanied by an array of dipping sauces—among them a horseradish-spiked sauce for the seafood, a plum sauce or mild curry sauce for the chicken, a green goddess-inspired sauce for the vegetables and other piquant and herbaceous condiments to round off the sometimes straightforward taste of poached meat or fish.
Salads are included with all entrees and “big night out” dinners, but can also be had alone for $7 each, including a Mandarin orange and almond version; a chef’s salad with sliced eggs, ham and Emmenthaler cheese; or a California version with greens, walnuts and Gorgonzola.
Much of the obsessing here—both on the part of the waitstaff and also by self-indulgent guests—is directed toward the much-vaunted dessert fondues (small $16; regular $32), particularly since they are all built on the concept of molten chocolate and a number of equally sweet and pleasing add-ins. The “Amaretto Meltdown,” for instance, is silky white chocolate, spiked with the nutty-scented liquor, and flambéed tableside. The original is the house milk chocolate melted with a swirl of crunchy peanut butter. The “Flaming Turtle” is based on milk chocolate swirled with caramel and studded with chopped pecans—just like the confections for which it is named—and is also flambéed. Yin and Yang helps the undecided by offering half dark chocolate and half white chocolate in the same pot. Dessert fondues come with sides for dipping—chunks of brownies and pound cake, strawberries, bananas and pineapple, marshmallows, all to enrobe with the warm melted chocolate.
The Melting Pot also has a rather prodigious six-page wine list with bottles ranging in price from $18 to $240, a wide assortment of what they characterize as “light,” “medium,” and “heavy” intensity reds and whites, as well as champagnes and sparkling wines.
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