Fondues and Don'ts

Before I get into today’s festivities, it should be noted from yesterday’s comments. I, too, remember those words from Lamar Alexander, and it was a good speech. That guy outperformed his street cred. And jz, I noticed your sister’s name in the program and wondered if that was her – since the home was “Fredericksburg, VA.” – and it turns out I was right. Congrats to “wz.”

But speaking of festivities, the graduation fun doesn’t end with a two-face sunburn and an extreme longing for water. Later on that evening, the fam, the grad, the wife, and the blogger had a nice dinner at the restaurant of the grad’s choice. It should be noted that the grad eats at Panera Bread about 39.2 times per week. I’m not kidding. You would think that she works there. And that could come in handy if you ran out of cream cheese – she could just go into the backroom for you.

So fully expecting a tough decision of whether to go with soup or salad to complete my Pick Two, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Panera Bread (an anagram for “ER Panda Bear) was not on the menu. Instead, we headed north to Ballston to diner at the one-stop gooified dinner shop – The Melting Pot.

Now the title makes sense, doesn’t it?

For those who haven’t, going to the Melting Pot is a completely different dining experience that any other restaurant. Two reasons – fondue is a cuisine that requires you to do the majority of the food preparation, and also they give you long pointy sticks with which to maneuver. If you can melt it, it can be a course at a fondue place. Granted, most eateries of this variety stick with the cheese, wine, and chocolate families of fondue, but why not customer-suggested items? Caramel? Peanut Butter? Frosting? Why not?

Do be sure to pay attention to what the waiter tells you at the outset. Fondue rookies can find themselves in a pretty precarious place if they don’t know what’s going on. Fondue Pointy Sticks could get mixed up, the bottom of the fondue pot could be littered with bread wreckage that slid off said sticks, and you can get so flustered trying to remember which cheese is which that you end up trying to cook that piece of apple in your water glass. It’s hectic, I know, but it’s worth it.

Also, from personal experience, there’s a minor element of dining karma at play here. The waiter has to go to such lengths to make sure everyone knows what’s going on and that the fondue dipping selections are expertly mixed and prepared that the back-end of the service might skew awry. Eating such a hot meal requires several refills of the old water glass (assuming it’s apple-free).
And in cramped quarters, such a protocol may prove quite difficult. That’s the only way I can explain getting hit by about 6 ice cubes down my back mid-shrimp-poke. And when a water glass came crashing down on the table due to dining karma, I just figured it was because the busboy wanted everyone in on the action. Maybe we were to celebrate the new graduate by dumping icy water on her head after a job well done, just like on the football field sidelines…

…except fondue dinners take more time than a football game.

If I were in charge of the Melting Pot, (the Best Company Ever is looking to diversify, after all), I think I would add an element of surprise to a fondue feast. Now you see, a dessert tray comes with many offerings to dip in goo, but no item tasted better than the small square of pound cake. Unfortunately, there’s only two cubes to go around. And since everyone’s been practicing with the sharp pointy sticks for the last three hours, there should be a civilized way to decide who gets to dine on the pound cake.

My vote is for fondue fencing.