Taking my wife to The Melting Pot for her birthday proved to be one of the biggest Man Points mistakes of my life. Until recently, I had never even heard of this restaurant even though there are close to 150 of them scattered throughout this great country. Taking your wife to a chain restaurant is not manly to begin with, but taking her to this particular chain is especially egregious.
In fact, The Melting Pot is a fondue chain restaurant that represents the Emasculation of America. Its power to shrivel a man’s masculine core is rooted in its celebration of fondue, its reliance on cheap gimmickry to razzle-dazzle its presumably dumb customers, and its “interactive dining experience,” which is a fancy way of saying the diners skewer their own raw meat and then hold the skewers over a pot of boiling vegetable broth before dipping the meats into one of a dozen over-sweetened sauces. The “interactive” format allows The Melting Pot to skip having chefs in the kitchen. All the staff needs to do is prep the raw meats, fish, and vegetables, and cut up the bread (rather cheap bread at that, suitable for feeding to ducks and pigeons) for the fondue. The friendly, baby-faced waiter, who told me he trained for ten days and had to take daily written exams, put on a lame show, adding packets of seasoning and cups of sauces to the silver heating bowl on our table with the flair of a cheap magician. As he added a packet of bouillon spices to the boiling pot on our table, I was wondering if he was going to pull a rabbit out of my coat pocket or pluck a silver dollar from my wife’s ear.
If all this isn’t emasculating enough, you then must suffer the indignity of knowing you’re getting punked by the menu’s outlandishly high prices. The menu’s “Big Night Out,” which includes three set choices—“ Fondue Feast” for $88, “Fondue Fusion” for $94, and “Lobster Indulgence” for $98—is a blatant form of armed robbery disguised by the restaurant’s dark high-end atmosphere, its waiter’s fancy shuffling of sauces on your table, and the swanky cocktail music playing in the background.
So let’s get this straight. I took my wife to a fondue restaurant. I bought cheese, a few skewers of raw meat, and cherries covered in what looked like Hershey’s chocolate syrup and had to fork out over $100 plus tip and I committed yet an even more horrific Man Points Mistake: I called in advance and asked what the restaurant’s Fahrenheit room temperature was so that I could dress appropriately. I don’t like being too cold, or too hot, in restaurants.
I tried to make the call on the sly, but my wife came out of her shower early and heard me talking to the person at the front desk who had put me on hold to find out what the restaurant’s temperature was. Before I could get an answer, my wife hung up the phone and said. “What the hell? They’re going to think we’re freaks. Just layer your clothes.”
So for my wife’s birthday I got robbed by an unctuous restaurant chain, I ate fondue, and I got reprimanded by my wife for calling to get a temperature reading.
So I ask you, who in the hell am I to be taking on the role of Mr. Man Points?
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