California Vegetarian

Last Christmas, my brother and his wife drew mine and George’s names in our “sibling gift exchange.”  As has sorta become our custom when either couple ends up drawing the other two individuals out of the hat, they chose to give us a gift certificate for eating out  (George and I drew them the year before, and we sent them to the Culinary Institute of America in Napa, but that is a restaurant for another entry).  They gave us a card for the Melting Pot.

At first we were skeptical, but they really enjoyed it when they went, and, as omnivores, they assured us that we would find vegetarian options that we would like.  Well, then we got busy, and honestly, forgot that we had the card.  Just last week, we remembered it. It just so happens that also this last week one of my sisters had a birthday and George and I celebrated our anniversary.  So, we called up the sister and arranged a dinner to finally use the Christmas gift card. We ate at the San Jose location.

We were thoroughly pleased, if a little too warm—steam on the table when it is 90+ degrees outside is a bit over the top.  We will wait until the cooler weather to return, I think.

The Melting Pot is a national franchise chain.  There are locations in all but 13 states now, and California apparently has 15 locations.  This means that the vegetarian traveling the states knows that if they find a Melting Pot, they will be able to get some vegetables.

The menu can be a bit confusing at first.  Omnivores can choose to do a gigantic meal from the first page of the menu called “Big Night Out.”  Since all of the entrées listed under this set menu include meat, the vegetarian will want to skip ahead to page two where you will find some lovely mixed drinks.  I will admit that we indulged—we were celebrating, of course. Page three begins the food selections.

On page three of the menu, you’ll see the cheese fondue options.  We decided that since we love cheese and since we were out to celebrate, we’d go all out and order all three courses.  A ton of Swiss cheese can be too strong for me, and we had already made salad decisions that included a blue cheese, so, we opted for the cheddar fondue.  Be careful here if you also choose the cheddar.  At table, they mix the not-yet-melted cheese with beer, garlic and “seasonings.”  If you do not catch it, part of that seasoning will be Worcestershire sauce, which traditionally includes fish stock.  They put it all in the double-boiler that is on the cooking element in the middle of the table.  As double-boilers are meant to do, it gets hot, begins to steam, and melts the cheese.  At that point, the hungry vegetarian has the opportunity to dip a variety of bread chunks (we had white, wheat, sourdough, rye, to name a few), fresh veggies (mini carrots, chopped celery and cauliflower) and cut green apples into the yummy, gooey cheese and enjoy. The cheese fondue costs $16 and, according to the menu, serves 1-2 people. There were three of us, but the serving for two was more than enough.

Three of the four regular salads are clean for vegetarians.  None are clean for vegans. We all opted for the California Salad, which was a mix of baby salad greens, tomatoes, walnuts and gorgonzola cheese served with a raspberry vinaigrette.  I recommend getting the dressing on the side as mine came a bit over dressed.  Still, it was very tasty, and either at $7 per person, or included in the entrée, the salad came at a good prince.

All three “Entrées for Two” are meat, but there is one vegetarian option in the “Individual Entrées” section of the menu.  All three of us chose “The Vegetarian.”  We chose the only vegetarian cooking method, “Court Bouillon,” which is a seasoned vegetable broth. I have to admit that it smelled a little like Top Ramen, but we were assured that it was vegetarian. The cooking method comes to the table in a clean double-boiler screwed shut to look more like a medieval torture device than a cooking pot.  But since it was all about safety, we were not offended.  The selection of raw vegetables was excellent, and the amount was incredible.  I think that the Melting Pot must suffer from guilt about the $22 price for the entrée. 

So, they try to make up for it by giving what became three meals worth of vegetables for us.  Raw vegetables included: potatoes, broccoli, portabella mushrooms, button mushrooms, tofu, artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, asparagus, eggplant, and zucchini served with a couple gorgonzola ravioli.

The server brought out about a dozen sauces to dip the cooked vegetables in.  I apologize; I need to admit that it did not occur to me to ask about the ingredients in the sauces—I’d had my specialty drink and most of my wine by this point.  Each vegetable takes about 2-3 minutes to cook in the broth. We dumped all the potatoes in first, because they take a little longer.  Side note: do not go to the Melting Pot if you are in a hurry.  Expect a leisurely meal with lots of talking.

We ordered the Yin & Yang dessert chocolate fondue for dessert. It is half dark chocolate and half white chocolate, served with a bunch of sweets to dip.  There were fruit: strawberries and bananas. There was also cheesecake, brownies, and pound cake.  There were also non-vegetarian sweets: rice crispy treats and marshmallows. The server brought us a few extra bites of pound cake and brownies. It was a tasty end to a great meal.

Oh, we also bought a great bottle of wine. Which brings me to the comment that the Melting Pot in San Jose had a wonderful wine list. Since we were celebrating, we splurged on an excellent reserve wine. The menu had wide range of wine options for any budget.

Having written all this, I feel like I need to point out that the meal cannot be both vegetarian and omnivorous, at least not based on what we saw.  Each table has one cooking element.  This means that at any given time, there can only be one cooking bowl on the table at a time.  If you are a vegetarian that cares about your veggies being cooked with or in meat stock/oil, you will not be able to have meat eaters at the table with you.  George and I care about this, although we know that there have to have been times when our vegetables were cooked too near meat or in the same oil as meat… we just try not to think too much about it.  Seeing it on the table in front of us would be too much.  So, if that would be too much for you, too, know that you cannot eat at the Melting Pot with meat eaters.  For our meal, my sister decided that she’d be meat-free with us.  So, we did not have to disappoint anybody.