The Melting Pot

Kerry and I love The Melting Pot restaurant. We went to one in Florida when we were dating. Then we went to one in Virginia when we had small children and I was petrified they would burn themselves. A pot of boiling oil in the middle of the dining table is just not a good situation with young kids. We've never lived near one again. Then, while on Maui, we happened to spot a sign for the Melting Pot while we were riding down the street. We immediately abandoned all plans for the evening and made reservations to eat there.

This was easily the best meal we had on Maui. And the most expensive. Immediately after eating there we cancelled our plans to go to the circus because we had blown our circus budget on this one meal.

But, oh, was it good.

The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant. They start off by bringing you a double boiler and putting it on a burner which is right in the middle of your table. We picked a spinach-artichoke cheese dip and a fancy French cheese with a carafe of wine poured in it. Emily of course, could not eat the cheese dips because of her dairy allergy. But she happily noshed on the fruits and veggies which the rest of us were dipping into the pots.

I shouldn't have looked at this picture. Now I'm craving cauliflower dipped in that fancy cheese.

The plates are ultra cool. There are all these little compartments in case you are OCD about your food touching.

After the cheese was consumed, we had two pots of boiling oil and broth bestowed upon our table. Our entree consisted of bits of beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, lobster, duck, and probably several other things I'm completely forgetting. Scallops. There may have been scallops.

We each got three skewers with a different colored handle and were able to cook our meats in each pot and then dunk them in various sauces and then fight over who took your duck while trying to skewer the last shrimp before anyone else claimed it. Battling for your food helps build up an appetite and add a level of excitement not usually found in a family dinner.

Kerry was just as happy as a man can be.

Then, dessert. Oh, dessert was heavenly. Our fabulous waitress actually managed to scrounge up a dairy free pot of chocolate so Emily could participate. The rest of us had the yin and yang chocolate which was a glorious mixture of dark and white chocolate. We had fruit, marshmallows, and pound cake to dunk in it. Unfortunately, we polished it off rather quickly and tried to dive into Emily's soy chocolate. She viciously used her skewer to fend us off.

Who knew she could fence like that?

You do have to be very cautious if your kids get hold of the skewers.

Or you may find yourself impaled and dunked in chocolate before you know it.