I came tonight for the grand opening and it was pretty busy! Set back from Hawthorne in a financial building (formerly the Comerica building), the restaurant is very nicely decorated with lots of booths for various sized groups and a row of intimate booths for parties of two. As a veteran of Melting Pot, I have to say that this is one of the cutest ones I’ve been to. The menu is the same as all other Melting Pot with a variation on the wine selections. One of the bottles that I wanted to try that I had had at the Irvine and San Clemente stores was not on the menu, so I decided to try something different. I went with the Chocolate Fontini which was fabulous. It went down very smoothly but wasn’t too sweet to ruin the meal.
We decided to have just cheese and chocolate for dinner. We chose the chedder cheese fondue (my fav!!) and the Wisconsin trio cheese fondue. Both were good, as was expected! Our server, Isabella, gave us very full bowls of cheese and cooked them perfectly. The bleu cheese in the Wisconsin trio brings out the flavors and is complimented with the breads. Isabella made the best cheese I’ve ever had at an MP and for that, I will be asking for her anytime that I go to this location.
Now the chocolate portion of the meal is always so good, however, whenever I go, we can never finish because we are so full. So I was excited tonight to finish all of it and also try some new ones. We tried the specialty, the Cherry Jubilee and the Bananas Foster. Now, I am not a big fan of white chocolate because it tends to be too sweet, but I figured we’d try out the Bananas Foster to see how it was (plus one person in our party doesn’t like dark chocolate, so it was her choice). Well, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the Bananas Foster! This is not your typical chocolate fondue. It had caramel, white chocolate, chunks of bananas and an alcohol flambeed on top of it and it was so good!! I LOVE dark chocolate, but the Bananas Foster blew the Cherry Jubilee out of the water. It was good because it wasn’t really chocolatey, just more of a good dessert. Not too sweet, and it went well with most of the dippers. So good!
All in all, we had a fun night and I know that I will be coming back for more fondue. I spoke with the owner before leaving and she let me know that they are going to be having Girl’s Night Out like the other Melting Pots and also a Happy Hour. I can’t wait for those to start so i can get more of my friends hooked on fondue!!
Melting Pot
21525 Hawthorne Boulevard
Torrance, CA 90503
(310) 316-7500
[rating:4/5]
Also featured as “First to Review” on Yelp.