Christina and I celebrated our first anniversary as a couple of old married folks yesterday at The Melting Pot, which is probably the States’ largest fondue restaurant chain. Since it only comes once a year and we wanted our first anniversary to be really special, we went all out and got the most expensive package they had - Lovers Lane - which includes a four-course meal in addition to some extra amenities that Christina wasn’t aware of, which made the night that much more fun.

The entrance to the restaurant is unique in that the restaurant is underground. On the street level, a staircase decends to the front door. The worst part of our night was our unwelcoming greeting by our host, James - he was either unhappy to see us or maybe he was just exhausted. Fortunately, James made up for the cold welcome later on in the evening.

We were seated in a nice semi-private booth in the back of the restaurant. Soon after, Jerry introduced himself as our server and, since this was our first time, discussed the workings of the menu and the four-course meal.

Before I go on, you might be thinking, “four courses?” Yeah. Hell yeah.

The first course was cheese fondue of the spinach and swiss variety. I don’t usually care for swiss but this was some good shyte, with a really great flavor and a variety of food to dip. Towards the end of the course, James came back with a dozen roses for the Mrs. The roses are actually a regular part of the Lovers Lane package but what surprised me was that James decided that the original bouquet of roses wasn’t up to their standards, prompting him to pick up these fresh beauties instead. That’s above and beyond. (Thanks James!)

Our second course was salad. I had the chef’s salad, which is like a traditional salad with their own house dressing; Christina had the mushroom salad. Now, when most people hear “mushroom salad” they’d probably think of a salad with a few mushrooms; on the contrary, this was basically a plate full of mushrooms with a few pieces of salad. It was a bit silly, but still very enjoyable.

Around this time Jason came back and took our picture, which they printed and framed for us. It’s a really good picture - very similar to the one you see here - and the keepsake frame with The Melting Pot logo on the bottom corner added a very unique touch to the experience.

We picked the lobster dinner for our third course, which was our entrée course. Neither of us had ever had lobster before, so we were in for a treat. Along with the lobster came chicken, shrimp, steak, veggies, and more. We ended up getting a fondue sauce which had a large consistency of burgandy wine. Unfortunately, as a straight-edge, I was faced with a moral dilemma - should I return the fondue sauce or just try to enjoy it? I ended up sticking it out. I decided that, since at least some of the alcohol was being cooked out of the sauce and I wasn’t consuming the sauce in large enough volumes to be affected in any negative way, I would stick it out with this concoction - which ended up being delicious. Everything in our main course was excellent, especially the chicken which was juicy and tender, and the lobster in combination with the melted butter or mustard sauce.

By this time, we were full. Luckily, Jerry knows what he’s doing and was able to space out the courses perfectly. Our fourth and final course was desert - chocolate fondue. We had many choices, but decided to go with a half milk-chocolate, half white-chocolate Yin and Yang . The presentation of the fondue was enough, but the taste - . So good, especially with the fruits it came with for dipping (which are bottomless, BTW) and the cheesecake.

When we left, we were absolutely stuffed to the gills. We rolled our arses up the stairs to the street and then to the car. We considered seeing X-Men 3 (which Christina still hasn’t seen yet) but we missed the showing at the theater by The Melting Pot so, instead, we just went to Blockbuster and bought some PVTs to watch at home as we unwound and allowed the great feast that was our first anniversary to settle.

And to put it all into perspective, Racheal (Christina’s sister) gave me a shirt that shows a bride and groom - under the pair reads “game over”.

Not only that but, last night, Christina discovered my first gray hair. Super.

Yeah. Super.