How do you describe a restaurant that on one hand offers high-quality seafood, meat, and vegetarian entrees, but also serves up a scrumptious array of cheese, chocolate, and other warm fondues to dip it into?
Not only does the Hoboken franchise of the national Melting Pot chain do just that, but they also offer special cocktails, four-course meals, a bar menu, and events.
The restaurant, which opened two years ago on the south waterfront, allows diners to participate by cooking or dipping their own fine food and dessert in a pot that simmers on the table.
It was fun to rescue errant foods that flipped off our fondue forks.
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While I had looked forward to dipping meat and bread in warm cheese, we soon found there was a lot more to enjoy than just the fondue.
How it works
Hoboken’s Melting Pot is a spacious locale that serves small gatherings, family outings, intimate dates (there’s even a private section called “Lovers’ Lane”) and has a back room for business meetings or parties.
Each table has a hotplate to heat up a metal pot. Into the pot, your waitress will mix various herbs along with cheeses, chocolates, marinades, or broths.
In some cases, meats and vegetables are served raw so you can let them cook for a few minutes in your boiling pot of broth and herbs, then dip them into cool sauces and eat.
Not everyone has to go for the fondue, but it’s the most notable option on the menu. The restaurant also serves creative hors d’oeuvres, tasty salads, and fine wines.
Four courses, separately or together
While you can order from any category (bar menu, salads, fondue, signature entrees, chocolate fondues), we tried the “Big Night Out” which is a four-course dinner for two, including two rounds of fondue.
When you order the Big Night Out, you choose a type of cheese fondue, a salad, an entrée (steak, chicken or seafood with a dipping sauce and vegetables), and a chocolate fondue for dessert.
A cheese fondue selection alone costs $18 for one to two people. Choices range from “Wisconsin Trio Cheese Fondue” to “Spinach Artichoke Cheese Fondue.”
Salads run from a house salad to a spinach mushroom salad. Alone, they are $8 each. (As part of the four-course dinner, you pay one price for everything.)
Signature entrees can range from a “seafood trio” including shrimp, scallops and a fish fillet, to sirloin and shrimp, to filet mignon, to twin lobster tails. Most entrees range from $23 to $32. There are also special entrees for two to split, including combinations of lobster and meat.
Then there are the dessert fondues – eight types. They are $16 for a small or $32 for regular and include various combinations of dark, milk, and white chocolate, plus ingredients like marshmallows, crushed Oreos, amaretto, and bananas.
The special we tried
For the fall and winter, they’ve added one special four-course meal, “Fondue Fusion.” It has an Alpine theme.
Like the other four-course dinners, it included a salad, cheese fondue, entrée, and chocolate dessert. And it was definitely special.
We started with the Alpine cheese fondue – including Gruyere and fontina cheeses. Riesling wine and garlic were also added to the mix. The shredded cheeses melted before our eyes. Then we took our fondue forks and dipped in our green apples, rosemary bread, cauliflower, and summer sausage. There was also a trio of sauces to try, including one with mustard, peas, and nutmeg.
We also enjoyed our salads. My spring mix included roasted tomatoes, spinach, cheese, hardboiled eggs, and honey roasted almonds that make it crunchy. In a delicious dressing, it was a healthy delight.
Then the entrée came – a fondue fusion mix. We got to try a lobster tail, pieces of marinated chicken, beer-soaked shrimp, New York strip steak in red wine, sundried tomato ravioli, and beef. All were available to cook in our pot of “coq au vin” broth, which included garlic, scallions, red wine, and fresh pepper. Each item took up to two minutes to cook in the boiling pot. I liked the ravioli best, as I’m not a big meat person, and hubby liked the steak best.
There were also vegetables to cook, including mushroom caps, red bliss potatoes, and broccoli.
Finally, we got several sauces for the cooked meats, including teriyaki, curry yogurt, and ginger plum.
It was a joy to try so many flavor combinations, and it was fun to go after errant foods that flipped off our fondue forks into the broth. The Melting Pot provides a spoon to “rescue” such items.
Finally, dessert! For their special “apple cobbler” chocolate fondue, you can choose white, dark, or milk chocolate. We had white chocolate, which had baked apples and crumbly streusel in it. We got to dip cheesecake, marshmallows, Oreo-cookie-covered marshmallows, pound cake, and strawberries into it. My favorite was dipping the pound cake. I also loved the crumbly part of the warm fondue. It added an extra element.
Fun facts
For those just stopping by who don’t want a big entrée, the bar menu includes everything from shrimp quesadillas to Kobe beef sliders to dippable Satay skewers. We tried almost all of the bar menu items on a separate visit, and they were superb. They range from $9 to $13.
The Melting Pot is located at 100 Sinatra Drive. Their phone number is (201) 222-1440. Check them out at www.meltingpot.com.