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| - On a recent day-trip to the Cleve, my girlfriend and I were told that we should stop in Melt - a place which exclusively serves variations on the Grilled cheese - before our show since it was in the area. I read up a little bit(Already having been sold on the idea) and decided it was a must.
So we finally show up at Melt, and the first bit of quirk we find is that instead of taking your name, they assign you a name on a nametag. I received the honor of waiting as Elvis. Tom Selek and King Tut sat on either side of me as we buckled in for the one-hour wait.
Now, don't be fool here - yes, the wait is long, but that belies the nature of this place. Melt has three times as much bar seating as it does table seating. Hungry? Saddle up. We could have grabbed seats at the bar within 5 minutes of our arrival - but since we grabbed a quick snack on the way up we decided that the hour would give us time to make room and grabbed beers instead. By the way, the selection here is great. Local and favorite crafts, a couple being rarities.
After about 50 minutes we were seated - the menus handed to us were printed on the backs of album covers. I got disco-pop superheros The Bee Gees while my girlfriend received contest-television star Paula Abdul. Everything on the menu sounds heavenly, with about 5-10 appetizer selections and 20-30 sandwich selections, it is fairly overwhelming. Having mental overload, I decided to play it safe and go with Yelp's favorite, the Monty Cristo. My better half chose the Parmageddon - being from Pittsburgh, we are suckers. Our eyes had originally caught the pierogies and the ultimate fries appetizers - but she got pierogies on her sandwich and you could upgrade the fries that came with your meal for $2.50, so we passed on appetizers. -- By the way, you can sub any cheese you get for their list of about 10, or add, or swap for vegan options.
Thankfully so, because you get a massive amount of food at this place. These sandwiches are stacked high, and everything else is piled on to the place. There is no negative space on this presentation - fries, cole slaw, and sandwich overwhelmingly take over the plate. My sandwich arrived deep fried in a copious amount of batter and sprinkled in powdered sugar. It tasted like half funnel cake, half delicious grilled cheese - magnificent I thought, but next time I could go without the sweetness for a more savory choice(Not to say it wasn't savory at all - it was a good mix).
The fries, cole slaw and parmageddon shine due to one thing in my eyes - an uninhibited use of an underutilized spice - black pepper! There is a monstrous amount used in this place, it permeates just about anything it can. It's a flavor I really enjoy, especially with the saltiness of cheese. This cole slaw was also very good on it's own - while I usually like creamy cole slaw more, this was sweet and very good.
At the end of the meal, neither of us had finished more than half of our plate. Our takeout boxes had to have weighed a pound each. We made a pretty big dent in my ultimate fries but hers were almost entirely untouched. The total bill(Minus our beer) was less than $25.
Why not five-stars? I feel like the service is a bit too laid back. Multiple times I saw food sitting up on the counter for a few minutes before it got picked up, which when food is being fried or grilled so heavily, those seconds can be precious. Also, I saw many parties leave and their tabled remained empty for up to 10 minutes before they were cleaned and re-used. In a place with probably a 2 hour wait period(When I left, I saw people I was waiting with still waiting - there are only about 15 tables) those tables should be cleared and re-seated in minutes.
I saw a lot of takeout orders go out, as well. Bottom line, this place is awesome. If you don't like long waits, feel free to sit at the bar, there is plenty of room. If you have a big group, maybe order takeout - I saw a girl leave with 9 sandwiches to go. But it is definitely delicious.
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