More reviews: Melting Pot / Wallace & Gromit

In this entry, I will quickly mention the events of this past weekend. I will then review two specific aspects of it: a fondue restaurant called the Melting Pot and a claymation motion picture called Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Overall, I didn't do too much this weekend. I stayed at home and played a bunch of games while Katie worked. I cleaned up the apartment a little. I did some of the dishes. We watched some Lost episodes on DVD and the new Housewives episode last night.

Saturday was Katie's birthday, though. She was working until 4:30 PM, so I picked her up then and we drove over to the Waterfront for a 6 PM showing of Wallace and Gromit. After that, we headed over to Station Square and ate at the Melting Pot. It was a very good evening, if I do say so myself.

Enough about what happened. The important question: how good was it all? Let's go in order.

Wallace and Gromit have been the darlings of claymation ever since, well, claymation was born. Sure, we may all have some fond thoughts about Gumby and his pal Pokey, but let's face it: Gumby was like a wet-nap, while Wallace and Gromit is like taking a shower. Each has their place, but the scale is just very different.

I went into the movie thinking that it would be a nice, little movie that I would appreciate for the claymation. I was surprised. Not only is the visual aspect of the movie stunning, but the movie itself is actually very good. The plot and humor work well together, and the puns used are those that I would use if only I were a clever British man. There were multiple moments when I laughed out loud in the theater - and I don't mean a chuckle - which is more than I can say for most recent comedies I've seen. The verdict: highly recommended for anyone and everyone. I'll be damned if Gromit isn't an old silent film star that found work in the claymation business.

A few gripes about the Melting Pot before I start singing its praises, too. It isn't the kind of place you can just drop by for dessert or dinner, which is a bit of a pain for those of us who don't like to (or are incapable) of planning ahead. I had made reservations earlier this week for Saturday at 9 PM (they didn't have any earlier times than that), but I assume the wait if we had just showed up would have been about an hour and a half or so. Even though we had reservations, we didn't get seated until about 9:15.

Once we got in, however, things went swimmingly. The menu is two pages of actual offerings and fifteen gajillion pages of wine. The restaurant has four course to offer: a cheese fondue to begin with, followed by a salad, then a main meat/seafood course, and closing with a chocolate fondue dessert. You don't have to get all four courses, like we did, but it does provide for a pretty luxurious experience. The overall bill (four courses for both of us and a glass of wine for Katie), which ran to just under $100 without tip, was something that also would prevent us from indulging in the entire Melting Pot experience too often, but it never seemed like a rip-off. In fact, stopping by for a $14 chocolate fondue would cost about as much as two Gullifty's desserts, excepting any cost for parking.

The food was delicious - we were allowed to choose the cheese to use, and were given bread, apples, and vegetables to dip. The salad was nothing extraordinary, but it felt like a fitting second course.

The main entree course was oddly similar to a Chinese hot pot dinner, where uncooked meat is put into a boiling cauldron of water in the middle of the table. We did the same thing here, except with fondue forks instead of chopsticks. Also, the boiling water was red wine based and seasoned with additional accoutremonts (like garlic and mushrooms and whatnot). It was a little nerve racking because it's hard to tell when the meat was "done" but neither of us threw up later (or died), so I think we did well for not knowing. The meat was also delicious. It was very, very good meat, and it felt novel making it yourself. This also had the added benefit that you could eat what you want when (the entree we ordered consisted of about 5 pieces of 6 different kinds of chicken/steak) and that whatever you ate was hot - as it had just come out of boiling red wine.

The dessert was also very, very good, except for some weird Oreo covered marshmellows that we dipped into chocolate. Those were weird. Also, dipping small brownies into chocolate seemed a little redundant. What was surprising was that we both still had room for all of the dippables on this final fondue platter, which I think is another compliment to the Melting Pot for having such a full balance. We were both stuffed after the entire meal, but it never felt like I was putting food in my mouth for the sake of finishing it; I ate everything because it was delicious and I still had some room.

Verdict? I would go there again. You should eat there, and - if you can - get someone else to pay for it. In fact, if we didn't go all four-course-style, just getting an entree would be quite delicious and a good deal cheaper. The only caveat is that we could never really just be on the South Side and say: "Hey, let's swing by Station Square and eat at the Melting Pot" because the wait would be too long. I'm not sure how successful calling a few hours beforehand would be, though. I'll try that next time I'm in the mood. The mood for food.