The Melting Pot Social is a new restaurant that opened May 22nd this year. While The Melting Pot Social (otherwise known as Meltso) is like the original Melting Pot, there are some differences. Meltso is more of a casual dining experience, nothing like the fancy, professional Melting Pot. Meltso serves both cheese and chocolate fondue, but also serves a variety of other entrees such as burgers, sandwiches, salads, soups, and even flatbreads. For the fondues, you could make your own personalized fondue with your choice of cheese or chocolate along with items to mix inside or extra dipping food. If you had trouble customizing your own, you could pick from the “chefs’ curations,” a fondue mixture created by a chef for a little extra money. Here is what I got from my trip to Meltso:

The personalized cheese fondue with cheddar, basil pesto, roasted garlic, and spinach was nice, melty, and tasted fairly good. However, the flavors of the mix ins didn’t stand out since it was hard to taste them. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Menendez.

The Queso Fuego is a chef’s curation and tasted very similar to the personalized, but even though the surface was lit on fire it wasn’t warm whatsoever. The personalized cheese was definitely at a higher temperature. It had a little spice from the jalapeños inside, but it didn’t taste too strong. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Menendez.

Personalized chocolate (1)- The personalized chocolate was made with milk chocolate, caramel, cookie dough, and pretzels. The flavor only tasted like milk chocolate, and I couldn’t taste the caramel. I only got a few bites of the cookie dough, and it was okay, but the pretzels did add a good amount of salt and crunch to the fondue. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Menendez.

Personalized chocolate (2)- The second personalized fondue was made with dark chocolate, crunchy peanut butter, Heath bar, and Oreo cookies. The peanut butter flavor really came through and had a surprising crunch. The Heath bar and Oreo cookies were barely tasted, either there wasn’t enough, or the peanut butter was too strong. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Menendez.

Overall, the Melting Pot Social was a 6/10. The fondue and dipping items were good, but it was nothing compared to the original Melting Pot. The restaurant also had a few other problems such as the inside not being air conditioned, and they mixed up our order. It may be significantly more expensive, but the original Melting Pot is better than its counterpart.