Today and tomorrow are Cassie's days. After breakfast we headed over the the Children's Museum of Richmond which is really more like a huge indoor play area for kids. She spent hours playing on a stage, in a kitchen, milking a cow, doing art and just having fun. If we let her she could have stayed all day but 3 hours is just about all most adults can take and we stayed 3 1/2 hours. Time to go.
We headed back for the hotel had a light lunch and headed for the pool for a few hours. This is where Cassie met a friend named Sierra. An easy name for her to remember since she has a friend back home with the same name. They played together in the pool for ages until her family finally packed up and headed up stairs. We stayed in the pool for a little longer then decided it was time to figure out what we were doing for dinner.
Cassie and Patrick went to the front desk to pick up some little advertisements of restaurants and brought them up stairs to sort through. Hummm hard choice. Hondos for steak and ribs, CanCan - a local favourite (or so the advertising says), Gibson's Grill (little more upscale then what we're looking for), Stronghill (a fine dining restaurant) and the Melting Pot for Fondue.
We and by we I mean Cassandra chose the Melting Pot. We got ready and took a nice 20 minute drive to their location for a 7.30 reservation. The restaurant was pretty dark with not much lighting above the table, just enough to see the menu but not much more. The stove or heating element was in the middle of the table. We chose the 4 course couples meal to be split between the three of us knowing that Cassie doesn't and wouldn't eat much.
Our first course started with the cheese fondue. yummy. We picked the traditional cheese over ones with blue cheese, beer and nut based. Our server Ariel, made the fondue right in front of us. She started with the wine, added garlic then the cheese, nutmeg and an alcohol i didn't catch the name of. We were given bread, veggies and apples for dipping. This was followed by a salad for Patrick and myself then our main course. A very nice veggy broth with pork, chicken, tuna, steak and shrimp. plus veggies and a few dumplings. Cooking time was 1 - 3 minutes depending on what was on the stick. Cassie didn't eat much of this course, which I didn't think she would, but instead saved all her room for the next and final course. Chocolate fondue.
We had several recipes to choose from and decided on S'mores Fondue. Another Cassie pick. Again it was set up in front of us only this time was set a flame much to Cassandra's surprise. Chocolate, marshmallow and graham crackers. We were given strawberries, brownies, rice crispy squares, cheesecake, marshmallows and pound cake for dipping. We all really enjoyed this course.
During our meal the manager came buy to say hello (when I called to make a reservation I asked for directions from our hotel and the girl asked where we were from since we were coming from a hotel, I mentioned Canada and she must have written it down) and to ask where in Canada we were from. When we said Toronto he let us know that they are about to start renovations on 3 locations in and around Toronto and would love to invite us to the opening of the first one in Ontario. This would be the second Canadian location as they have one already in Edmonton. How exciting, being invited to the opening of a new restaurant.
By the time we finished up it was just past 10pm. A very tired Cassandra was sleeping before we even pulled out of the parking lot
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