The wait is over! Say hello to The Melting Pot fondue restaurant!

Welcome, The Melting Pot Indonesia!

If you have ever been in the secluded area on 5th floor of Plaza Senayan recently – where the Applebee’s stands -, you have probably noticed the “Opening Soon” sign of The Melting Pot restaurant just next to it. And the good news is, this fondue restaurant has finally opened for public since 23 March 2015, YAY!

The Melting Pot Restaurants, Inc. has been North America’s premier fondue restaurant, existing since 1975. The first restaurant opened in Maitland, Florida, and featured just three menu items: Swiss Cheese Fondue, Beef Fondue, and Chocolate Fondue dessert.

For nearly 40 years now, The Melting Pot is the world’s largest fondue franchise, with more than 130 restaurants in 36 states. More recently, the business has spread its wings globally, and currently there are 3 restaurants outside America: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia; with over 20 in development across the globe.

I guess it’s amazing that we are one of the first foreign countries which have The Melting Pot branch!

I had been wanting to visit it since I couldn’t make it for the grand opening invitation last week, I finally went the same week on a Saturday noon. To my surprise, despite the fact of its newly-opened status, I didn’t see the crowds there.

The restaurant is quite big, with booth-seating dining room and warm yellowish lighting tone, which creates a warm, inviting atmosphere. Every table is completed with a cooktop and pot ready to start the fun!

The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant, and everything here resolves around fondue, fondue, and fondue.

Fondue, stemming from the French verb meaning “to melt”, is a centuried-old Swiss tradition, although France has  also been credited for the invention. And believe it or not, France and Switzerland have been battling over it until now, as to claim who created fondue first!

In dictionary, fondue means “a dish of which small pieces of food are dipped into a cooking hot sauce or medium such as broth”.

Fondue eventually became popular in the US in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and Chocolate Fondue was created in New York City in 1964 by Chef Conrad Egli of Switzerland.

The menu in The Melting Pot are divided into 4 main categories only: Cheese Fondue, Salad, Entrée, and Chocolate Fondue.

Prices for food range from IDR 58,000 to 696,000 per person.

Basically we can choose to try the A La Carte, Fondue By You, and 4-course Experience.

The 4-course Experience is the most recommended menu item if you come for the first time and want to try the fondue experience to maximum level. All you need to do is: selecting one cheese fondue, select one salad, select one entrée, and select one chocolate fondue. The price of each 4-course Experience is different, depends on the entrée that you choose.

This 4-course Experience is best enjoyed for one person, but sharing is not prohibited.

The Classic 4-course Experience IDR 488,000

Premium U.S. filet mignon, herb-crusted chicken, black tiger prawns, Memphis-style chicken, and teriyaki-marinated ribeye.

Cheese Fondue: Spinach Artichoke
I chose Spinach Artichoke cheese fondue for the first set, contains of Fontina and Gouda cheeses, spinach, artichoke hearts, and garlic.  If you like Applebee’s Spinach Artichoke dip, you’ll absolutely love this. The cheese was fragrant instead of smelly, and the garlic enhanced the aroma and flavor to the different level.

** If you bring kids or underage companions, this would be a perfect choice because out of 5 cheese fondue menu items, only this and Creamy Tomato fondue don’t use alcohol ingredients.

Each cheese fondue comes with artisan breads and seasonal vegetables for dipping. We especially loved the tortilla chips and soft breads, also the freshest tomatoes! YUM! <33

SALAD: The Melting Pot House Salad
Mix of crisp romaine and iceberg lettuce, cheddar cheese, fresh tomatoes, crispy croutons, and sliced egg finished with choice of Peppercorn Ranch Dressing or sweet and tangy House Dressing.

The salad was fresh and satisfying, with right amount of everything. We loved the ingredients as well as the dressing (picked the Peppercorn): light and tasty, with a hint of spice.

Entrée: The Classic
Premium U.S. filet mignon, herb-crusted chicken, black tiger prawns, Memphis-style chicken, and teriyaki-marinated ribeye.

Cooking Style: SEASONED COURT BOUILLON
Fresh, seasoned vegetable broth.

The set comes with a plate of the meat, a bowl of assorted vegetables like potatoes, broccoli, and mushrooms, a bowl of coconut rice, 6 types of sauce, and an empty sectioned plate.

The meat were served beautifully in one person serving portion, and also tasted very good. They were well-marinated in various herbs and spices, each with their own distinctive flavors but were still enjoyable as one unity. My favorite is the ribeye with teriyaki sauce and Memphis-style chicken, which nicely exploded in the mouth!

The sauces cover mostly everyone’s favorites, from cheesy sauces, ginger sauce, teriyaki sauce, even chili sauce, these are conveniently provided in every set. Although most all the meat are already well-seasoned, these sauces really came in handy to enhance the flavor of each meat.

For the entrée, we can choose one of the premium cooking styles from 4 options and I chose the Seasoned Court Bouillon, which is a complimentary non-alcoholic cooking style. I like the simple yet tasty broth, which I think is more than enough to dip the food and actually enjoy them with the provided sauces.

The coconut rice is not my favorite, though. The rice was too soft and very soggy, with only little hint of coconut or any brave flavor. I was expecting something like Mexican coconut rice but it wasn’t anything like that.

Chocolate Fondue: Raspberry Dark
Tart raspberry syrup blended into bittersweet dark chocolate.

This was truly a delicious chocolate fondue with strong hint of raspberry flavor, a combination between sweet and bitter high-quality dark chocolate complimented with the natural sourness of raspberry, simply addictive. The portion is enough for one person and there will be no bad aftertaste because it doesn’t make you sick of having too much.

Each chocolate fondue comes with variety of dippers such as fruits and rich pastries, and still, my favorite is the fresh fruits especially the sweet and sour strawberries!

Land And Sea 4-course Experience IDR 448,000

Cheese Fondue: Cheddar
Aged, medium-sharp cheddar and Emmenthaler Swiss cheeses, lager beer, garlic, and seasonings.

The Cheddar is actually the signature cheese fondue of The Melting Pot so obviously it is the most recommended item if you wanna try their cheese fondue. However, this menu contains alcohol ingredients so you might need to take caution if dining with kids. To be honest, the alcohol ingredients gave a strong flavor and hint of bitterness, but I don’t think it would make anyone drunk or something, LOL. My 5+ years old nephew actually loved this so much and completely ignored the bitterness. XD

Salad: California
Mixed baby salad greens, Roma tomatoes, candied walnuts, and Gorgonzola cheese with a raspberry vinaigrette.

I picked this because they only have 3 options for salad, and another one is Caesar Salad, so I wanted something else. I didn’t really put attention to the description (my bad!) and found out later that they used Gorgonzola (Italian blue cheese)! The salad was fresh, the raspberry vinaigrette was amazingly refreshing and sourly sweet, but the Gorgonzola cheese dominated the whole thing. If you like cheese, this is probably a hit item for you, so again, it’s based on our own preferences.

Entrée: Land And Sea
Premium U.S. filet mignon, herb-crusted chicken and black tiger prawns.

As The Classic, this is also signature entrée of The Melting Pot, but actually the contents of this set is lesser version of The Classic. Honestly, I was busy making sure my waiter got my orders right so I didn’t pay much attention to the description of each menu item. *sigh* I will tell you why later.

Cooking Style: MOJO IDR (+additional 68,000/pot)
Caribbean-seasoned bouillon with a distinctive fresh-garlic flavor and a citrus flair.

For this set, I chose MOJO cooking style, means with additional IDR 68,000, I got a special broth. There are 4 cooking styles available, but I suggest you go for the complimentary (free of charge) one like I tried for my first set as you can also enhance the flavors of the meat with provided sauces.

The MOJO broth has strong, aromatic fragrance that might be too strong and disturbing for some people as they put lots of Caribbean-style herbs and spices. If you like bold and strong flavors/aroma, this broth is perfect to please your senses!

Chocolate Fondue: Yin & Yang
Combination of white and dark chocolate served artistically in Yin & Yang pattern, this is definitely a feast to the eyes as well as the taste buds! If you prefer something sweeter, this can be a good option!

Beside fondue and friends, The Melting Pot also offers large selection of beverages, including alcoholic ones. I tried some of the recommended mocktails (all priced at IDR 45,000) and there are also mouth-watering cocktails options with competitive prices, which hopefully I can try in my next visit!

Blackberry Sage Lemonade IDR 45,000

Mix of blackberry, lemonade, and sage; this drink amazed me instantly from the first sip. The unique taste is created from sweetness and nice kick of sourness, but not too much. Smooth and easy in the throat, this is definitely a good thirst-quencher as well as a classy fun drink during social night out! It deserves to be one of the signature mocktails for sure!

Yin & Yang Martini IDR 45,000

This mocktail is white chocolate and vanilla blended with ice cream and topped with chocolate shavings, is also the signature item. I would say this could be EVERYONE’S FAVORITE as the ingredients are very age-friendly and can be enjoyed by everyone. The presentation is artistic and beautiful, the taste is neutral and friendly. One glass is definitely not enough.

Banana Bonkers IDR 45,000

Another great mocktail consists of frozen banana treat blended with sweet cranberry and fresh orange. Love, love, love it. Banana never fails for me but this was exceptionally good and refreshing. The citrusy flavors from orange added the beautiful fragrance to the already-dominating banana flavor. Simply yumm-o!

My first experience in The Melting Pot Indonesia is quite bitter and sweet. The food was great, nice presentation, fun to do, and I will definitely recommend coming in group as fondue is best enjoyed with companions. Place is clean, elegant, and looking luxurious, perfect for casual, romantic, or even more formal dining sessions.

My only concern about it is the service. FYI, The Melting Pot Indonesia is a franchise brought by the same franchisee of Applebee’s Indonesia. And if you have read my previous review about my experience in Applebee’s, you’ll notice that I wasn’t really happy with the service. To my horror, the exact similar pattern of “bad” service was also experienced during my visit to The Melting Pot this time. It seems like there is a visible lack of staffs training and it is quite disappointing, especially because they bring a relatively-new concept with the restaurant and I supposed an informative and knowledgeable staffs are definitely a MUST to introduce the menu and concept to the guests and visitors.

Like in Applebee’s, the staffs are a bit clueless about the menu, but luckily seems like they are trained to serve the guests with over-the-top politeness. It’s very heart-warming and funny at the same time. Not that I am complaining, but I wish they emphasize more on knowledge rather than just the manner.

Although I was very annoyed by staffs who seemed so clueless and couldn’t answer mostly my questions (and trust me, I didn’t even throw more than 3 questions before ordering), he was very polite and helpful whenever we asked for anything. But still, I rated the service 6,5 only because I believe informative staffs are the key of a restaurant’s success (because they connect directly to the guests), and above anything else, ALWAYS ASK YOUR GUESTS FIRST before doing anything. As we take photos, we were very disturbed everytime something was served on the table and the staff just did something deliberately without asking or explaining or informing us first! I mean, hello?, can you see us? LOL!

Anyway, before this is getting too long and becomes rambling post, let me just say that despite everything that happened, I still thought the experience was great. Although this definitely costs much, I assure you it’s worth all the money you spend.

Welcome to Indonesia and wish you best of luck, The Melting Pot Indonesia!

*All prices are subject to 8% service charge & 10% government tax

*The Food Escape team are not paid whatsoever for writing this post.

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THE MELTING POT – A FONDUE RESTAURANT
Plaza Senayan Level P5 Unit CP-516 (next to Applebee’s)
Jl. Asia Afrika No. 8
Jakarta 10270
Phone. +62 21 5790 6057
Opening Hours:
Mon-Thu 11.30AM – 12AM
Fri-Sun 11.30AM – 1AM
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