Melt

Melt Bar & Grill Logo
"You know what I need,
Or maybe you don't,

Stop wastin' my time
Do I have to come right flat out,
and tell you everything,
Gimme some money...."

Spinal Tap-Gimme Some Money
We have a new culinary phenom in my neck of the woods. It's based on  age-old stand-by of bread and cheese and heat. It's an eatery called,....simply,..."Melt".
Now, the reason this joint is now a phenom is for one reason alone. It's because that freaky-looking guy from "Dive, Diners and Drive-ins",...I think his name is Guy something-or-other,...came to town and gave it the rave review,..like he does with every dive that he goes into. I think the criteria of having a show like his is to simply ohh and ahh about everything that your stick in your pie-hole.
In any event,...this place is now the rave of the region, right? So, my better half asks me if I want to go there today for lunch. We had an hour to kill and thought we'd take advantage of time spent together, doing something that we both love.
Eating.
So we travel down the through-fare to this famed establishment and walk in an expect to be wow-ed by their famous grilled cheeses.
Ok,...this is where it gets funny,...
We go in and they tell us that the wait for a table,...on a Toooozday afternoon, mind you,....is 45 minutes to an hour,...or we could sit at the bar and get our order placed promptly. We choose the bar because' we ain't got that kinda time to kill for a freakin' sandwich, right?
We plop down at the bar and order two waters and a coffee for me. One water for her. One water and coffee for me. They present us with their menus.
My stomach begins to turn by the combinations that they had on these sandwiches. A Gyro grilled cheese with tahziki sauce, a Monte "crisco" grilled cheese with berry preserves, a cinnamon grilled cheese,...and the grilled cheese for the month? The Godfather grilled cheese. It was pizza rolls,...Jeno's pizza rolls,...stuck onto a freakin' grilled cheese with Parmesan sauce on top of it and Parmesan cheese on the bread,...all served with a shit load of fries that you would never be able to eat in one sitting.
I couldn't help but wonder about the mind that put this crap together. None of it was appealing and it seemed like a six year old came up with the menu.This has to be one of those instances where the presentation of fluff is put under the heading of genius and the masses just suck it up.
Kinda like Jean-Michel Basquiat.
I give the guy credit for trying something new and capitalizing on it. If we all did that, this world would be a better place....but I just can't get on board with this. 10 bucks for a glorified grilled cheese is pretty much taking advantage of people in rough times. And I know it can be said that if people are willing to pay it, then so be it. If it makes us feel better to go to an over-rated restaurant then live and let live
It can be said that he is providing jobs for people. Yeah, maybe,...but I saw no fewer than 7 cooks on that line taking upwards of 40 minutes to get a stupid grilled cheese out....while acting like they're doin' us the favor by letting us eat there.
This is like the Studio 54 of Cleveland. No merit, no substance.
And, like disco, it will fade into obscurity and people will wonder what it was they were thinking when, in years to come, they look back on this folly.
"Melt". Yeah,...what a stroke of genius.
Anyway,...

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