Wednesday, March 17, 2004 | 8:19 a.m.
I'm from Texas.
Which more or less explains how I managed to grow up never hearing of fondue.
After all, in the Lone Star State, dipping is something that happens after a meal "just a pinch between your gum and cheek is all it takes," as Skoal once advertised and is certainly not part of the meal.
Since I've been out of the fondue loop, I was surprised to learn that fondue has been around since the 18th century, when the Swiss combined melted cheeses, wines and a bit of flour to make dipping sauces for household foods and ingredients.
Not so surprising to me, though, is that fondue is derived from the French verb "fondre" and means "to melt."
Those wacky French and their cooking terms.
Despite its existence for several centuries, it wasn't really until the 1970s the decade of The Hustle and disco that fondue became big in the United States.
I have friends who remember their parents buying fondue pot sets and hosting fondue parties.
They would get together and make a night of dipping meats, fruits and vegetables and even desserts into various melted cheeses, chocolate and wine-based sauces.
Unfortunately, all good things must end. As the '80s began, fondue was replaced by such lasting consumer choices as soybean burgers, Malamars, the McDLT and Bartles & Jaymes Wine Coolers.
But not everyone gave up the ghost of fondue and yielded to the changing times, as I discovered. The Melting Pot is unafraid to go retro and has found enough fondue aficionados to build a chain of restaurants devoted to the craft.
The first Melting Pot opened in Maitland, Fla., In six years there were five more Melting Pot restaurants throughout Florida.
Today there are 70 Melting Pots across the country, including one in Las Vegas, 8704 W. Charleston Blvd., Suite 102.
One night recently I stopped by the local Melting Pot to check out the fondue craze for myself. Better a quarter-century late than never at all.
Cheese, please
It is 6:30 p.m. Friday and the place is packed.
I called to make a reservation, and to tell them I am writing about my experiences for the Las Vegas Sun and that a photographer will be along to document my experience.
It isn't too long, then, before we are seated in a large, dark booth. It certainly has an upscale and romantic ambience.
A minute or so later and our waitress, Hallie, comes by our table. I quickly explain my naivete in the world of fondue dining and that I want to get as complete an experience as possible.
Up until then, my thoughts were that you order a few sauces cheese, wine and chocolate from the menu. Then they give you some meats and you spend the remainder of your meal dipping.
Simple enough.
Then I look at the menu.
The restaurant features options up to a four-course meal, including: cheese fondue, salad, signature entree and dessert. Or, as I like to think of it: appetizer, necessary (healthy) evil, dinner and dessert.
We opt for the King's Feast, which includes all four courses for $78 per couple, or $39 per person.
Our first choice is one of the four cheese fondue courses:
Cheddar cheese: aged medium sharp cheddar and emmenthaler cheeses, lager, beer, garlic and seasonings.
Traditional Swiss cheese: gruyere and emmenthaler Swiss cheeses, white wine, a touch of garlic, nutmeg and fresh lemon.
Wisconsin trio cheese: creamy fontina and butterkase, as well as buttermilk bleu cheese with white wine, fresh scallions and hint of sherry.
Fiesta cheese: cheddar cheese with the flavor of Mexican herbs, spices, jalapeno peppers and salsa, served with tortilla chips.
On the advice of our waitress we go with the Wisconsin trio.
Hallie comes back to the table, which features an electric stove in the center, with two pots. One pot is full of water, which she places onto the oven first. She puts the other pot on top, so everything is cooked by a double-boiler.
She explains it's better to cook the sauce and meats this way since there's no direct heat and nothing will burn. In other words, it's fool-proof for fondue novices such as myself.
After a few minutes the steam rises and Hallie returns to mix the cheese. The base of the Wisconsin trio is a 3-to-1 ratio of white wine to sherry. She adds scallions, then a 50-50 mixture of fontina and butterkase. As it melts she adds pepper and bleu cheese.
She also brings our tray of goodies: slivers of Granny Smith green apples, fresh French, rye and pumpernickel bread cut into small squares, and sliced celery, carrots and cauliflower.
Hallie tells us there's no rush and to just take our time and enjoy the meal. (Note: The average four-course meal at the Melting Pot takes about two hours to complete.)
She also says we can have more dipping food if we want.
One can never have too much cauliflower, I suppose.
With that she gives us two sets of fondue forks to spear, dip and eat our food, which are colored separately -- yellow and black -- so there's no mistaking someone's fork for your own. Never mind that everyone repeatedly dips their forks into the same sauce.
I begin my fondue experience with French bread.
After dipping a piece into the sauce, I'm forced to hold it over the pot while the excess cheese drips back into the bowl. I'm determined to be neat and not make a mess on the table -- let alone my shirt.
A few seconds later and I realize that all the cheesy goodness is returning to the pot whence it came. I decide to go for it, holding my free hand underneath the bread to catch any cheese bombs that fall along the way to my mouth.
I suck on the cheese for a few moments -- it's a novel taste -- and then it's gone. The French bread itself also tastes great.
So far, so good.
Next I try an apple slice. I'm told that dipping apples into cheese is common in other parts of the country. In Texas we call that a nacho, and it involves a tortilla chip, not a piece of fruit.
Despite my lack of experience with the cheese-apple combo, I find the mix rather tasty, with the cold sweetness of the apple a nice counter to the warm, salty cheese.
I move on to a piece of celery.
On rare occasion, I've been known to eat a piece of celery -- usually when it's the sole piece of food on a vegetable tray and there's enough ranch dressing to drown it.
I must say that the celery with Wisconsin trio cheese is surprisingly good.
Emboldened, I try a carrot. I don't like carrots, even the sugary glazed kind. But I reason the cheese will mask the horrendous taste of the crunchy vegetable. Or, at the very least, disguise it to where it is edible.
I have some difficulty spearing a carrot with my fork and, living my worst fears, the slippery piece of vegetable comes loose from my fork, plummets and sinks into a sea of bubbly cheese.
Never fear. The Melting Pot provides a handy "search-and-rescue" spoon for just such a faux pas. Fortunately, it doesn't take me long before I find the carrot and bring it to the surface.
All the work isn't worth my effort as the taste of the carrot simply overpowers the cheese.
For the sake of this story, I decide to try the cauliflower.
However, there are only two foods in the world I dislike more than cauliflower. But after eating the cauliflower dipped into cheese, I can say there's no food I hate more than cauliflower.
Once again, the cheese all too quickly vanishes, leaving me with this wretched, foul vegetable stranded in my mouth. I forcibly swallow the cauliflower, vowing never to eat it again -- no matter what kind of dipping sauce is provided.
It's been said, you can take the man out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the man. In my mind, cauliflower will forever reside in a double-wide.
For the remaining cheese course I stick with the bread.
Next up is the salad. Nothing too unusual about this. The only dipping I did is immersing lettuce into the tangy house dressing of my chef's salad.
Soon it's time for the entree course, which, as part of the King's Feast, features pieces of tenderloin, teriyaki-marinated sirloin, boneless chicken breast, shrimp and Oriental potstickers, along with yellow squash, broccoli, new potatoes and mushroom caps.
This portion of the meal is served with four sauces: buttermilk bleu cheese, lemon pepper, teriyaki glaze and ginger plum.
All meats are uncooked -- Hallie informs us that, when in the Melting Pot, we don't use the r-word, "raw" -- and must cook in the sauce for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, depending on the type of meat.
The cooking styles include four selections: Coq au Vin, Fondue Court Bouillon, Mojo Fondue and Fondue Bourguignonne.
Again deferring to our waitress' expertise, we went with the Coq au Vin, a Burgundy wine with herbs, mushrooms, garlic and spice.
Hallie says the sauce is very forgiving for cooking the food.
"You can leave it in there all night and it won't overcook," she says.
Good to know. Considering everything on the plate is raw ... er, uncooked, we'll want to leave them in the pot for a while just to make sure.
For me, this portion of the meal is the highlight of the evening.
While the Burgundy wine sauce is better suited for the steak and shrimp than the chicken, everything tastes great. Well, except for the yellow squash. The dipping sauces also make for a nice variety, subtly and not so subtly changing the taste of the foods.
Oh, and true to our waitress's word, nothing is overcooked. Even when some of the potatoes and mushrooms are abandoned in the broth, they are retrieved five minutes or more none the worse for it.
Just so you don't think I have a prejudice against healthier foods, I eagerly ate the potatoes and mushrooms we cooked in the mix. Oh, and a piece or two of broccoli.
The meal is rather hearty, so be prepared not to finish. And there's no shame in that -- especially with a round of chocolate fondue in the wings.
What I can't finish of the steak, shrimp and chicken I throw into the pot, along with the remaining mushrooms and potatoes, to cook.
Hallie brings me a to-go box and I fill it up with delicious leftovers.
Although I'm stuffed by now, skimming through the various chocolate fondue selections, I can't help but regain my appetite.
As I explained to Mom years ago, there's always room for dessert.
It is my final decision of the evening. Milk chocolate with nuts. White chocolate swirled with Amaretto and flambeed tableside. Dark chocolate topped with marshmallow cream with crushed Oreo cookies. Milk chocolate swirled with Bailey's Irish Cream. Or "pure" melted milk, dark or white chocolate.
We opt for the "Yin & Yang," a half-and-half swirl of dark and white chocolate, that is as pleasing to the eye as to the taste buds.
In fact, with the dark and white chocolate artfully separated on either side of the bowl, I can't help but think of the "Seinfeld" episode with the black and white cookie, in which Jerry remarks: "I love the black and white. Two races of flavor living side by side ... It's a wonderful thing, isn't it?"
Yes, it is.
To dip into the chocolate we are given pieces of pineapple, banana, pound cake and brownies, whole strawberries, nutty marshmallows and a small slice of cheesecake.
I try them all.
My consensus: Why would anyone ruin perfectly good chocolate with fruit?
Strawberries? Maybe. But bananas and chocolate don't mix. And I'm fairly certain that the unholy union of pineapple and chocolate is a sign the apocalypse is upon us.
I wish The Melting Pot would provide other dip choices for the chocolate ... nuts, caramel nuggets, that substance called nougat and even other types of chocolate.
Throw in some candy-coated shells for a reverse M&M and you're all set.
But forget the fruit.
And really, the dipping selection is my only beef with fondue.
Cheese, just as with chocolate, is great. But who wants to waste it on celery, carrots or cauliflower?
Some alternatives might include, but are certainly not limited to: fancy blue and red tortilla chips (this is a classy restaurant, after all); nacho cheese-flavored Doritos, for a great cheese-on-cheese taste; Fritos; potato chips, plain and ruffled; and even Funyuns.
In addition to chips, there are also cocktail wieners, meatballs, flautas and/or taquitos, french fries and even those miniature corn dogs you find in the frozen section at your finer grocery stores.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal at the Melting Pot. These are merely suggestions ... delicious, mouth-watering suggestions.
As I discovered, fondue isn't really about eating, it's about the experience of eating.
This explains why I ended up treating our cat to the leftovers.
Without the double-boiler pots, different-colored forks and, of course, the search-and-rescue spoon, the fondue just wasn't the same.
Which only proves, you can take the man from Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the man.
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