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The Melting Pot

Chicago Restaurant Week has officially begun, and my friends (including J, AK, and my adopted older brother JT) and i decided to take advantage of that on Saturday by heading to The Melting Pot for lunch. Most people would probably spend about $50 plus tax & tip on a normal meal there, so the $22 lunch option seemed like an amazing steal.

the last time that i'd been here was for a party, so the entire bottom floor had been rented out and we had chocolate fountains flowing...i blogged about it before but i didn't document it very well, and was glad to have another chance to eat there.

the meal started off rather shaky, as one of our burners didn't work and they had to switch us out of our booth - not to mention our waiter ignored us for a long time and didn't get us our waters until about 45 minutes after we had been seated. after complaining to the manager, they were a LOT more attentive, and the real fun began!


with 4 people, we were allowed to pick 2 cheese fondues, 2 cooking styles for the protein / entrée platter, and 2 types of chocolate fondues. we started off with the Wisconsin trio as well as the spinach artichoke fondues, which was mixed right in front of our eyes.


the Wisconsin cheese fondue was a mix of many blue cheese with "a hint of sherry", which didn't come off that well with us. if anything, it was rather bitter and tasted like a pot of gooey alcohol. we decided to swap it out for the Seasonal Cheese fondue, which ended up also being quite alcoholic but was a lot more manageable than the first one.

our favourite was definitely the spinach artichoke, which was consumed pretty much as soon as they brought all the dippers out.

 
the hint of spiciness from the Tobasco makes it really delicious, and we killed it within a matter of minutes. 

the dippers were unlimited, so we just kept asking for more plates of apples and rosemary bread (the best option - don't bother filling your stomach up with the other ones!)

 

it comes with carrots, cauliflower, pickles, celery, apples, chips, and sausages (for the seasonal fondue).
 
 you then had your own individual platter of meats and seafood to cook, and we chose the coq au vin as well as the mojo style as our two pots. it was basically American hot pot! i never knew they had such a thing, but i guess they do!
 
the meats that were provided were: chicken breast, shrimp, tilapia, filet mignon, and teriyaki sirloin.


the coq au vin pot (with lots of steam!)

 
the mojo caribbean pot 
it came with unlimited veggie platters, so we just kept asking for more plates of broccoli as well as mushrooms.. i think we scared the waiters on this one! the four of us probably ate about .. 6-8 of the veggie platters, if not more.
 
the coq au vin pot was great for cooking the shrimp as well as the filet mignon, but it wasn't anything amazing. the mojo pot was nice because it had this great citrusy flavour that was great for the chicken and fish! however, would i pay the normal price to get this platter? definitely not. i thought the chicken breast was pretty ordinary - nothing too special. the filet mignon was nice, but there's only 2 tiny pieces (of course, what can you expect from at $22 meal?). the teriyaki sirloin was very mediocre and hard to chew, and the fish was again, average.
 
finally, the good part: dessert! i think we were all in agreement that if we were to come back here, we'd definitely show up just to eat this, and nothing else. i believe normally it's $16 for a regular chocolate pot.
 
for our 2 choices we picked the yin-and-yang...
 
 
and the special event option - dark chocolate with Baileys!


as pretty as the yin-and-yang was, it seemed like the dark chocolate option was better, though most people didn't taste the Baileys.

i actually decided to give up artificial sweets for Lent, so i wasn't able to partake in the dessert option - i just ate the fruit on the platter hahaha. they give you strawberries, bananas, rice krispies, graham cracker dusted marshmallows, oreo dusted marshmallows, cheesecake, brownies, and pound cake. AND it's unlimited (the dippers, not the chocolate). not bad at all.



 

in the end, we decided to leave a sizeable tip since they made up for the lack of service in the beginning. however, it's really not a place where you'd go all the time...and honestly, only the dessert is worth it. the cheese fondue isn't awful, but it wasn't as great as i had remembered. 

The Melting Pot
609 N. Dearborn St.
Chicago, IL 60654