Date Night

Monday was “date night” - which I define as actually GOING OUT somewhere (in this case dinner and the symphony), as opposed to doing what we normally do – order an extra-large Popeye and Olive Oyl from Schmizza and burping Fat Tire while watching episodes of Family Guy in our jammies.

We had dinner at The Melting Pot; a fondue-restaurant franchise that we thought went kaput here in Portland (they closed down about 5 years ago), but turns out they recently opened a new location smack dab in the heart of downtown. My fiancée noticed the sign a few months back and exclaimed, "OMG! Is that a Melting Pot?" as we were driving by it. And right then and there agreed this is where we would have dinner before our next symphony date (conveniently enough, it's located one block from the concert hall).

I hadn't been to a Melting Pot since I was on my way up to Seattle Labor Day weekend of 2003 to see Radiohead with a friend. We were looking for someplace to eat (and more importantly, drink) close to I-5. We took some random exit in Tacoma and didn’t get more than 3 blocks before we saw the sign and exclaimed, “OMG! Is that a Melting Pot?” (sense a pattern here??) so we screeched into the driveway on two wheels, tossed the keys to the valet and scurried inside to get our fou-fou drinks and pot o’melty cheese. It was freakishly delicious.

The Tacoma location is neat in the fact that it’s in a converted industrial building. The interior is roomy with lots of windows and contemporary décor. For the newly opened Portland location, you take the stairs underneath the sign on the sidewalk down to the front door of the restaurant in basement of one of the high rises. Nice, warm décor…very cozy. Definitely a good “date” place.

Okok. I’m horribly off-track since I was originally going to sit down to write a mini-review of the Oregon Symphony performance, not about how much I love deep-fried cheese fat and dessert martini’s with no alcohol taste whatsoever, but obviously have a lot of it because your speech is slurred and you don't notice or care that you are continually scalding yourself with your fondue fork.

I’ll continue with the date night saga tomorrow…