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Let me preface this story by stating that never before in my life have I eaten fondue. As I am always open to new things, I decided it couldn’t hurt to try this peculiar style of food preparation. After all, many people that I had spoken with had nothing but good things to say about fondue. So, without much hesitation, I threw on a sweatshirt and walked out the door to the waiting car.

The place we were headed to was The Magic Pot Fondue Bistro in Edgewater, NJ. Now, for those who don’t know, Edgewater isn’t exactly the nicest place on Earth, but that’s understandable as it’s right near New York City. We pulled into a municipal parking lot and walked across the busy traffic on River Road. The moment we walked in, I knew that I was completely out of my element. To begin with, I was wearing a green hooded sweatshirt, an orange ‘Goat Brothers’ t-shirt from the Goodwill store, and a pair of Jnco jeans that I’ve likely had for years. Looking around at all the die-hard yuppie scum, I quickly realized that I had seemingly stepped into the wrong restaurant. We were seated and given menus, at which point I noticed a single line of text glaring at me from the front page of the menu, taunting me: you are welcome to bring your own wine.

At this point, I started to get very concerned. Not only did this place seem like a place that Hummer driving middle aged men would take a lovely twenty-two year old intern, but they didn’t even serve alcohol. This point is worth discussion — what kind of classy place doesn’t have a bar? Seriously, if they sold the wine on premesis they’d make a killing. Of course, that doesn’t mean that anything else at this place would have been better, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

As I mentioned, I had never tried fondue before. So, I told the people I was with to order something for themselves that I could then try. The waitress came back and first took our drink order — I think she was a little bit miffed that five of us asked for water. Frankly, I was afraid to order anything else considering the prices on the menu. Upon bringing back our beverages, we placed an order for an appetizer. Literally, it took about three minutes to order. During this time, the waitress was pressuring us to buy two of the most expensive meals on the menu. When we told her what we wanted, she once again reminded us that ‘the best thing to do’ was order this ridiculous $88 platter — not just once, but twice. The people I was with seemed to have a hard time telling her no, so I told her to come back in a minute. In any event, when she came back, she once again tried to pressure us into buying two of these $88 meals. We just told her no and placed our order anyway.

Who ever knew that it took so long to grate cheese? We sat waiting for about fifteen minutes before our waitress came back out with grated cheese, bread, and apples. Yes, apples. Whoever thought to mix apples and cheese is completely retarded. One of the cheeses was very much like any kind of sharp cheese that you could buy at a supermarket. The other cheese was Gruyere cheese. The smell of this nutty, yet picante cheese made my friend Mike vomit. Once again, I will reiterate that he vomitted from the smell alone. This, mind you, was only the appetizer. At this point, my favorite food was the slices of apple, without being tained by cheese.

Another half hour at the least had passed before our entrees were brought out. Of course, this is when I found out that the entree consisted of uncooked — not undercooked — but uncooked meat, plus sliced mushrooms and broccoli, which could then be dipped in a broth. We ordered the beef. It was not impressive. In fact, the best part of the entire dinner was taking the slices of mushroom, boiling them for a moment, and then dipping it in this indeterminate sauce that resembled teriyaki. Everyone else ordered desert, but I was, at this point, thoroughly unimpressed by everything else, so I just drank my water. This brings up a good point — you are welcome to bring your own wine to this place, right? What if you bring the Lord Jesus Christ, and he turns the water into wine, right on premesis. Is that acceptable?

In any event, to summarize our experience at The Magic Pot Fondue Bistro, it took too long to drive there, we waited too long to place our order, the waitress was pushy, the bar was non-existant, the odor of the appetizer caused a member of our party to vomit, the best part of the meal was the vegetables and teriyaki sauce (which would have probably cost about $4 at a supermarket), the meat was presented raw, and, to top it off, the place was filled with yuppie scum that seemed intimidated everytime the miscreant (myself) would stand up. Those yuppies would have been the only people that could afford a place that was as ridiculously overpriced as this. What cost so much anyway, you cook your own food, so there aren’t even any chefs to pay!! Final rating: 0 / 10 stars, I will never go there again nor recommend it to anyway.

In closing, I am reminded of a scene from Stealing Harvard (2002).

“What’s this?”

“Its Gruyeres cheese. It’s good.”

“Oh is it good? Is it nutty yet picante in flavor, aged for 2 years and from the Gruyeres region of Switzerland? I know what Gruyeres is. I’ve been to Gruyeres!” (Throws cheese at her)

“Gruyeres is in France…”