Melt Bar and Grilled, Part Two

My love affair with Melt continues. My brunch group met there on a Saturday morning in September. We got there a half hour before it opened because the organizer got the times mixed up, so we were the first folks in the restaurant and the first table to be seated. The place quickly filled up, and every seat was soon full.

I wish I had thought to take a photo of the menus. They are cleverly printed on the backs of old album covers. The Muppet Christmas Album and Kenny Rogers menus were particularly comical. The album covers span many different genres from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Since we were a large group (and the kitchen is probably fairly small) our sandwiches came out in batches. It didn’t matter. We were enjoying each other’s company.

Being a large group, we were able to order a lot of different sandwiches. Knowing how filling the sandwiches were, I planned on eating half of my sandwich and taking the other half home. The woman to my left commented that she thought I was a wimp when I told her my plan, but then she ended up doing the same thing with her very filling chorizo and potato grilled cheese.

Several of our members are vegetarians, so they were looking forward to the sandwich of the month, the Soul Vegetarian, which featured fried green tomatoes, collard greens, black-eyed pea puree, and pepper jack cheese jalapeno cornbread. I was able to taste it, and it truly was a taste sensation. The collard greens were simmered in garlic, and that took it to the next level!

I had been looking forward to trying the Mushroom Melt, but it seemed too early in the morning to be eating caramelized onions. So I ended up ordering The Kindergarten and added spinach, tomatoes and bacon. It was absolutely delicious.

With the focus on the grilled cheese the fact that Melt also serves grilled cheese burgers sometimes gets overlooked. Since it was brunch, the lone burger at the table was the Breakfast Burger, which features two Amish farmed fried eggs, crisp bacon, and American cheese. It is my friend’s favorite thing on their menu, and he loves it medium rare. It is cut in half here in the photo, because he cut it to make sure it was medium rare. The burger came out just to his specifications, and he loved it.

As has become our custom, we also ordered several desserts and passed them around the table. I had looked forward to the fried Twinkies, which are served with mixed berry preserves, but was most taken with the pumpkin cheesecake. It was creamy and delicious. I leave you with photos of the mouthwatering desserts.