Fondue pot and forks were a de rigueur wedding present in the not so long ago. Cheese fondue, fondue bourguignon with chunks of beef cooked in mini cauldrons of boiling oil and even chocolate fondue with plump ripe strawberries were in.
Food fashions change, especially when they involve high-cholesterol dining, and for decades, even thinking about fondue was thought to clog the arteries.
But as we know, what goes around comes around. Dr. Atkins is a hottie, and cheese, beef and chocolate fondues have returned to Washington.
The Melting Pot, on 19th Street NW, is tucked between Sam & Harry’s and I Ricchi in the space most recently occupied by Savoy. You enter at street level and go downstairs to a large, attractive room separated into dining areas with tables and booths, each with a heating element and a silvery metal pot installed in the center of the table. Steam rises cozily from bubbling pots. This is the place for fondue.
Fondue originated in frugal Switzerland as a means of using up old cheese. At the Melting Pot, which serves fondue exclusively (and a salad), the cheese is new, not old. The format is simple, tasty and fun.
Three kinds of fondue are on the menu: cheese as a starter; meat, fish and vegetables as an entree; and chocolate for dessert. Each category includes a variety of ingredients, and main-course fondues are prepared in a choice of cooking styles as well as ingredients. Cooking styles refers to the broth or oil in which the ingredients are “fondu” (meaning “to melt”). A salad is served between the cheese and entree fondues.
There are four cheese fondues. The traditional Swiss fondue incorporates Gruyere and Emmenthal cheeses with white wine, a soupcon of garlic and nutmeg, a little lemon juice and a bit of kirschwasser. Cheddar cheese fondue substitutes cheddar for the Gruyere and lager beer for the white wine and kirschwasser. WisconsinX3 combines fontina, butterkaese and buttermilk blue cheese, white wine, scallions and a bit of sherry. Fiesta cheese fondue is an untraditional mix of cheddar, Mexican herbs, spices, peppers and salsa and served with tortilla chips.
We chose the traditional Swiss, which the waiter brought to the table in a metal pot. He gave us all our long forks, a basket of cut-up French bread and a little bowl of apple pieces. The cheese was a delicious, creamy mixture, not as heavy or filling as the genuine Swiss version, which has a tendency to sink like lead in the tummy.
For the salad course, there’s a choice of greens with fresh mushrooms in a Parmesan-and-blue-cheese dressing; a chef’s salad of iceberg lettuce with tomatoes, cucumbers, eggs, diced ham and cheese in a sweet house dressing; and a California salad. The last is a mixture of baby greens, tomatoes, walnuts and blue cheese in an excellent vinaigrette. Our agreeable waiter substituted the blue cheese and Parmesan dressing for the sweet and tangy house dressing on the chef’s salad.
The main-course fondues include pieces of marinated teriyaki sirloin; medallions of beef tenderloin; breast of chicken; lobster tails; a trio of shrimp, scallops and fish filets; and a vegetarian combination that includes spinach-and-Gorgonzola ravioli.
All entrees are accompanied by broccoli, mushrooms and new potatoes and four to five sauces, such as mesquite barbecue, ginger plum, sherried pepper, Thai peanut, horseradish, spicy cocktail sauce or an excellent teriyaki glaze. A salad also is included in the price of the entree.
Everything comes to the table raw and must be cooked in one of four broths. It’s up to the diners to choose how they wish to cook the meat, fish and vegetables. There’s coq au vin, a combination of broth, Burgundy, herbs, mushrooms, garlic and spices; a vegetable broth; mojo, a Caribbean-seasoned bouillon; and canola oil served with fondue batters. (The coq au vin and the mojo are $6 extra.)
A good way to sample the Melting Pot’s variety of meats and fish is to choose a fondue for two. For a fixed price, two diners can get a three- or four-course meal of cheese, salad, entree, and dessert as the fourth course. The entrees in the fondue for two consist of platters of mixed meats and fish, a little bit of everything that could be ordered a la carte.
One combination includes beef tenderloin, shrimp, sirloin steak, breast of chicken and fish; another offers lobster tails, beef filet and mushrooms. Pacific rim adds pork tenderloin and marinated breast of duck as well as some pot stickers.
We tried a combination dinner and cooked it in the coq-au-vin broth, which added a subtle flavor to whatever we put into the pot. Our favorites were the tender teriyaki-marinated sirloin; the portobello mushrooms, which lend themselves particularly well to this type of cooking; the chicken breast; and the shrimp. The marinade gives an additional element of flavor to what is essentially boiled meat, fish and vegetables. The beef tenderloin was the only ingredient that was unsatisfactory — it was inexplicably sinewy and tough.
The vegetables can be cooked to a point of tenderness or eaten at the crunchy stage. The diner, being the cook, controls it all. The vegetables, especially the potatoes, tend to be on the bland side, but dipping them in one of the sauces helps.
The dessert choice is really tough: white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate. Once you decide on the type of chocolate, you must decide whether to add a liqueur, such as Bailey’s Irish Cream or amaretto, or nuts, or marshmallows, or to mix the chocolates. Decisions, decisions. Strawberries, chunks of banana and pineapple, marshmallows and chunks of cake are the items to be dipped. Resistance is virtually impossible.
The Melting Pot offers good wines at reasonable prices. A Swiss fendant would be a nice addition to go with the cheese fondue. Service is pleasant and reasonably efficient. It’s a place to go with good friends for an evening of cheer, and the groups of young people around us obviously were enjoying themselves. Indeed, how can you help but have a good time when everyone is dipping forks into a common pot and retrieving tasty morsels?
RESTAURANT: The Melting Pot, 1220 19th St. NW, 202/857-0777
HOURS: Dinner only; 5 to 10:45 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday
PRICES: Fondue for two $56 (three courses), $70 (four courses); a la carte cheese and dessert fondues $7 per person; salads $5; entrees $16 to $20
CREDIT CARDS: All major cards
PARKING: Complimentary valet parking
ACCESS: Wheelchair accessible
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