I Melt With You on Ladies’ Night!

If you’re like me, you thought fondue was just melted cheese or chocolate cooked over a little burner and stirred up with color coded forks. Maybe you hosted a fondue party to try to appear all cosmopolitan. Well, it’s a pain in the ass to make your own fondue, so just go to The Melting Pot for the full experience.

This national fondue chain restaurant moved onto “restaurant row” on Broad Street in downtown Bethlehem. If you’re up for a high-calorie adventure, it’s the place to go.

Basically, “fondue” is just food dipped into a pot. The Melting Pot goes beyond basic.

A nose-wrinkling smell of boiling meat is the first thing that hits me when I enter the warm, lush feeling entryway. No, that’s not the most appetizing odor. But it gets better!

I’ve been to the Melting Pot a few times. It doesn’t get any easier for me to order. It’s puzzling. To make my choices clearer, I start with a fancy drink. My favorite is the Strawberry Blonde Martini: $9 worth of champagne, strawberry vodka and fruity flavors. Sparkly! The wine list is extensive, and, expensive.

If you want to start with dessert, you must have the Yin Yang martini. But, if you do that, you might not be hungry for the dessert fondues, which to me are the top reasons to go to The Melting Pot.

First know that you’ll be spending a lot of time with your waitperson. They’ll cook everything at your table on burners. They’ll explain the process to you as they’re cooking. “Now, I’ll add the garlic.” “Let’s turn the heat down to 3.” “I’m going to flambé this chocolate now.” If you don’t like your server, your meal is going to suck. I have liked all of my servers here, they’re personable and professional.

There’s this big deal called the Big Night Out which includes a cheese fondue, a salad, an entrée and a dessert, all themed together. Right now you can get Alpine. I’ve never found this appealing but if you’ve skied Germany or Switzerland, you might enjoy reminiscing: “And after the Matterhorn, I had the best melted Gruyere and bratwurst, just like this!” I do not know what the Big Night Out costs, but I assume it’s a big price.

If you don’t want to stomach that, go a la carte. Depending on your table size, you’ll have one or two burners within easy reach and you’ll share one or two cheese fondues. You’ll spear bread cubes, apple slices and veggies with your color-coded fork. It’s so good you’ll be scraping the pot and asking for second plates of “dippers.”

The chocolate fondue choices are all heavenly. But whichever you choose, you’ll get a plate of rice krispies treats, pound cake, strawberries, brownies, marshmallows bananas and cheesecake to immerse and devour.

In between cheese and chocolate, if you desire, you can have a salad and/or an entrée.

Well, the salads are lackluster in comparison to the cooked food. And, the act of cooking raw meat and seafood in a steaming pot of boiling oil and broth directly in front of me, when there’s a chance I might undercook it, and I lose meat chunks in the pot as they mix with my dining companions’ meat chunks, well, it’s kind of weird. Is this what they do in the Alps? Really? The Melting Pot makes it as appealing as possible. You’ll select a plate of raw ingredients, which are seasoned. You select your cooking method, which is seasoned. Then you are presented with dipping sauces in case you need even more flavors. The combinations of tastes are seemingly endless and the dinner is spent trying all the food on the table, every which way. That’s part of the fun of The Melting Pot.

Fondue rules: Remember your fork color. No double dipping. Don’t let the fork touch your mouth. All of these rules are void if your dining partner is a very close friend.

When to go to The Melting Pot:

First date? I wouldn’t recommend it.

Third date? Probably not. If you have the full dinner, you might feel incredibly full, breathing garlic, and sweating from the steamy pot of oil at your table. Better to wait until at least your fourth rendezvous.

Special occasion? Absolutely. The Melting Pot makes celebrating easy on the party-planner. Make your reservations and they’ll offer you the package options of balloons, a vase of roses, photo souvenirs and more.

Business meetings? Leave the meeting at the office and break the ice here. Don’t talk business with cheese dripping down your face.

My favorite dishes:

Cheese fondue: Wisconsin Trio (Fontina, Butterkase, and Buttermilk Bleu with wine and scallions and sherry.)

Chocolate fondue: Chocolate S’mores!

Each is $16 for a pot that feeds two.

What I’m excited about:

The first Ladies’ Night at this location will be next Tuesday, February 23. Special $5 martinis and glasses of wine, special $35 per person 4-course menu! Girly friends in other cities rave about The Melting Pot’s Ladies’ Night deals. Also, join “Club Fondue” and get coupons and event notices sent to you. And, guys, Ladies’ Night might be a good time to relax at the posh bar.

The Melting Pot is one of a handful of restaurants in the Lehigh Valley for which you can make reservations conveniently on Open Table. Why talk to a live person when there’s an app for that?

The Melting Pot is located at 1 East Broad Street, Suite 100 (corner of North New Street & E. Broad) Bethlehem, PA 18018

(484) 241-4939

Link for menus and event info at this location: http://www.meltingpot.com/locations.aspx?z=18018&n=171935