Melting Pot — Restaurant in Bedford

Overpriced for a very poor dining experience.

We made a reservation for a Tuesday night, as stated was required online; upon arrival, we discovered that this was entirely unnecessary, as the un-reserved party that arrived at the same time as us was seated right away. Our server was absolutely knowledgeable about the different food items and the best way to prepare things, but that's where the good ended. Service was slow and almost non-existent, despite only a few other tables in the restaurant being occupied. We waited until after the cheese fondue was finished before receiving our charcuterie board & drinks, so another cheese fondue (an additional $25) needed to be ordered to enjoy with the board. While we sat waiting for these items, the empty fondue pot sat on the table and began to burn, causing the restaurant to fill with smoke.

The charcuterie board was poorly crafted, with a hard, cold salami-like meat, 3 tiny specks of prosciutto, and some stale crackers. The cheese fondue itself had an amazing flavor, however the dipping options were limited to a few vegetables and some stale bread. We opted for the dinner for 2 option, which came with cheese, salad, entree, and chocolate. The caesar salad had almost no dressing, with only the remnants of some kind of oil to cover up the bland ingredients. After waiting an additional 30 minutes, we finally received the main entree, a hot pot style broth and an assortment of meats to cook within. I'm used to hot pot restaurants serving the meats in thin slices, so that they can be cooked in a few minutes time, however the meats at Melting Pot are served in large chunks, and take around 4-5 minutes to cook. The meats were bland and the sauces they served did not do a whole lot to help with the flavor. The broth was very tasty, and we asked if some could be taken home with the leftover meats, however we were told that this was not allowed due to health regulations.

For dessert, we ordered the traditional milk chocolate, and found the chocolate to be delicious, but the dipping options were lacking. We wished that there were more fresh fruits and less of the sweets that were clearly not made in house.

Overall, The Melting Pot offers some delicious options inside the melting pot. The cheese fondue, cooking broth, and chocolate were the highlights of the meal. The problem is that everything that goes into the pot, including the dippers, are extremely lackluster. For such an expensive meal, we left wholly unsatisfied with the food and service. The server told us that she would be making the fondue right in front of us tableside as advertised, however everything came out prepared from the kitchen. We were never checked on by a manager, and the server only came to check in out of the necessity of needing to remove the various items throughout the stages of the meal. If you are interested in a similar experience where you can cook the food yourself, you are much better off taking your money to one of the cheaper korean bbq or hot pot locations in greater Boston. The Melting Pot is such an awesome concept that fails wholly on execution. For the price we paid ($100+ pp), I'd expect much better service, food quality, & experience. If you are considering going here, I'd strongly recommend taking your...

Where to begin? Had a reservation for 6:45 on a Wednesday evening we arrived a bit early so we went to the bar for a drink. The rest of our party (4) arrived and we were seated. Waitress was nice she brought out the menus took drink orders and left us to check out the menus. She returned about 10 minutes later bearing waters because that’s all we ordered. She then asked for what we wanted for cheese dips we gave her the order and she went to get our food. She returned about 15-20 minutes later with some beer and white cooking wine and left again. She returned maybe 10-15 minutes later with the fixings for the cheese sauce. I knew this was going to be a not so great experience when the great value quality cheese hit the pots. Cheese melted and the dips were decent. We started with a few pieces of broccoli, cauliflower, some bread and a couple carrots. Nothing very exciting about it at all. Waitress returned a while later and took food orders. We ordered the “big night out” meal for 2. This is where the night took a turn. Waitress took the cheese and such away and didn’t return for quite some time, didn’t refill the water just totally gone. Meanwhile we are chatting with our friends and just enjoying the evening. Maybe a half hour goes by maybe more she returns and states the owner deleted our order and it needed to get put back in. Another 20 minutes and some food shows up. I was less than impressed with the amount of food that showed up. 6 medium shrimp. 4 1” cubes of salmon, and a few other pieces of meat all equaling about what you would get in a plate of stir fry without the noodles and fixings so we were pretty underwhelmed. Not only that we received a square cast iron skillet and a pot of hot oil and stuff to fry the food. The skillet didn’t really get hot enough to cook the food in a reasonable time so we were left waiting a long time to eat a very small piece of meat or fish. The waitress came back and refilled the waters and informed us we still had potato’s and mushrooms coming to the table but the chef in the back was taking a long time prepping them. At this point we were about done and ready for the check. 15 minutes later a skimpy plate of mushrooms and potato’s comes out. The potato’s were frozen, legitimately frozen. Good job prepping chef. At this point we were making jokes about how slow the food was cooking and just ended up playing with what was left. The waitress took our food and took our dessert order. The dessert was delicious, fruit was fresh and was just good. Oh I dropped my napkin about halfway through dinner and the owner picked it up and informed me she would be right back, she never returned so I had to borrow a napkin. All in all we spent about $260 for 4 people and we received about $100 worth of food and sub par service. We will not be returning to pay all that money and to get poor service and we left hungry not ok in my book. I failed to mention the place was not busy at all and as I stated before reservation was at 6:45, we didn’t...

My family of 4 had dinner at TMP last night and unfortunately it was not a great experience. We had an early reservation and we were seated at a booth for 6 even though we were a table of four. The hostess said the demand for tables of four was high so we benefitted. Great start. The quality of the ingredients was really good (a bit overspiced). We had a Wisconsin. Cheddar start for two to feed two adults and two kids (9 and 12). It was plenty. We had a classic and a steak lovers entree and a small chocolate fondue to finish. The major complaint that we had is that any transition from ordering to getting food to getting the next course took forever. I am not opposed to leisurely dining but all told we were there for 2.5 hours. We could have easily eaten and been gone in less than 40 min if the service was prompt (not rushing). The wait staff was clearly over burdened. She was absolutely delightful and really good at what she was doing. The complexity of the menu (courses vs a la carte, styles, etc) was hard for us to follow but she made it easy. We had the steak lovers with the grill style and though I was having no trouble with grilling the food, it got smoky very fast. I was a little concerned that there wasn't a hood fan and that the smoke alarm might got off. That didn't happen but it got uncomfortably hot in our alcove booth. After many delays, we requested the check and sat for 30 mins. We had been done and ready to go for longer than that. We decided to talk to the front host because no wait staff was available. At that point the manager immediately threw the wait staff under the bus saying that she was new. I'm sorry, but she was clearly over burdened. It is management's responsibility to delegate tasks to wait staff ability and don't crap on your staff due to your inability to manage properly. I have to disagree that she needed to "step up". The really appalling thing is that during the long wait times I looked up reviews and this has been a problem for this location for some time and has not been addressed. Here's a tip, if you can't handle the number of guests, don't seat every table. I know food priced have gone up but if you move guests in and out faster you would do better business. The cost of the meal and the amount of food that you get is really not justified. Also, I see that every negative review requests a contact back with a manager. Honestly, I have spent enough time on this and since you can't give me my time back, I'm not interested in discussing further. I do not recommend visiting this location. We won't be back and will recommend others...