Largo Fire Rescue, Fire Station 41 will be hosting an Open House and the tenth annual Chili Cook-Off. Fire Station 41 (180 4th St. SW), Saturday, February 20th , from 2-5 p.m.

Family friendly activities are scheduled throughout the event including a Jaws of Life demonstration puppet shows, an explorer demonstration, fire engine rides, a technical rescue demonstration, station tours, Bayflite demonstration and interactive educational health and safety displays.

The tenth annual Chili Cook-Off, will feature teams from the City of Largo competing for the title of “Best Tasting Chili,” “Best Theme,” and “The Golden Boot”(for the most money raised). All donations are gratefully accepted and all proceeds go to the Children’s Burn Foundation of Florida.

There’s this little restaurant located about 2 miles from Downtown Pensacola. I drive by it almost every evening, and the parking lot is always packed solid. I knew it was part of a national chain, but couldn’t figure out for the life of me why it would be so full every single night. Even when I drove by at about midnight, the lot was still full. My parents have always had a tradition of taking their children out to any restaurant of our choosing on our birthdays. Naturally I remembered this restaurant, and told my folks that I had no idea what it was about, but needed to visit it because that many people just can’t be wrong. My parents made a reservation for my birthday.

As soon as I knew when I would be home, my parents made another reservation, and we managed to finally get a time this past Sunday evening. All I can say is – WOW! The Melting Pot is a very unique restaurant. I can’t remember ever visiting a restaurant whose claim to fame is fondue. Even the building was unique.  The original brick walls were still in place, and the restaurant was decorated pleasantly. The basic menu consists of four courses – appetizer, salad, entrée and dessert. The appetizer is a cheese fondue. You are presented with four absolutely delicious choices. The choices are a Cheddar Cheese fondue, two Swiss Cheese fondues, and a spicy Fiesta Cheddar Cheese fondue. Since I am not a big fan of spicy foods, we settled on the Cheddar Cheese fondue. They made the Cheddar cheese sauce right on our table. They started off with a lager beer base, then poured some garlic in it, some black pepper, and then dumped in gobfulls of Cheddar and Emmenthaler Swiss cheeses, and then mixed them together. To dip in the cheese sauce, we had white, rye and pumpernickel bread chunks, sliced apples, carrots, cauliflower and some other assorted vegetables. This was absolutely divine! The next course was the salad. I am not a fan of salads at all, but was willing to try one. The choices consisted of a Mushroom salad, a Chef’s salad, or a California salad. My parents and my sister chose the California salad, and I went ahead and chose the Mushroom salad. My Mushroom salad came with about 98% thinly sliced button mushrooms and 2% spinach lettuce. That was fine, I munched happily on the mushrooms and left the spinach lettuce alone. We all came to the same conclusions about our salads – the dressings were way too heavy and strong. I would recommend asking for your salad dressing on the side. Next came the main entrée. There are two ways to place this order. You can either order for two people, or you can order a single entrée at the bottom of the menu. The upside to ordering off the two-person menu is the price includes the appetizer and salad as well. If you order off the bottom of the menu, everything is a la carte. We opted for the group menu. In this section, you are given the choice of three meals. The Classic consists of Choice tenderloin, shrimp, teriyaki sirloin, boneless breast of chicken and fresh salmon. The sauces served with this dish are Spicy Cocktail, Mesquite Barbecue, Teriyaki Glaze, and Ginger Plum. The price for two people is $43.90. The Surf & Turf consists of twin lobster tails, tender medallions of center cut Filet Mignon and Portobello mushrooms. The sauces are Garlic Dijon Butter, Gorgonzola Port, Basil pesto, Sherried Au Poivre. The price for two people depends on whatever the current market price is for lobster. The third choice is The Pacific Rim. All of us opted for this platter. It consisted of Teriyaki marinated choice sirloin, shrimp, peppered pork tenderloin, marinated breast of duck, boneless breast of chicken, and potstickers. The sauces were Thai Peanut, Teriyaki Glaze, Ginger Plum. It was priced at $46.90 for two people. At this point I ran into a bit of a problem. I explained to the waitress that I was severely allergic to shrimp – so much so that if the shrimp were even cooked in the same pot as anything else, then I would still have the same allergic reaction. She was kind enough to offer a substitute on both plates, and gave us a choice of a wide-range of items. The one that caught my fancy was scallops. My brother agreed and my parents opted for another portion of the salmon. We had to choose between three types of base to cook our food. There is the broth, an oil base, and the Coq Au Vin, which was a mixture of broth and wine. We opted for the third choice. This choice did carry an extra $6.00 charge.

The platters included unlimited amounts of vegetables, which were broccoli, sliced potatoes, mushroom and squash. The entrée was fantastic – absolutely fantastic. It took about two minutes to cook each item in the broth, and there was no danger of overcooking. This was the advantage of the broth over the oil. The waitress warned us that the oil required more attention to cooking because it was possible to overcook and burn the food. Finally, it was time for dessert. There are two sizes of desserts – a small and a large . The small feeds two people and the large feeds four. We were not very hungry, so we opted for a small to feed the four of us, and in all honesty it was very sufficient. The small cost $9.99 and the large cost $19.95.

The Melting Pot is a fantastic experience for the whole family!

Destin Commons is a a glorious place to shop! There are many more shops for all to browse, spend, and charge away. However, many gentlemen can keep themselves entertained for hours at the Bass Pro Shop which is one of the anchor stores there. It’s HUGE.

And if you have children, they’ll also be highly entertained (and completely worn out) after playing for hours on the great padded playground that’s well within sight the center of the plaza. Is it the biggest one in the Panhandle? I think it might be.

As far as the restaurants, I stick with a winner and have my soup and sandwich at Panera Bread Company…wonderful Chicken Noodle and the softest, fresh baked bread available…all for $5.99. Now, that’s a deal.
Also know Hard Rock Cafe is a classic, and a great place for Cheeseburgers. Or, if your in hurry, Johnny Rocket’s is hard to beat for burgers as well.

And of course there’s Starbucks, which is a great way to warm your insides, and boost your energy level, which may be running low after all the shopping you’ve been doing. But, what I’m really looking forward to is the opening of Grapes Wine Bar, where I’ll really indulge in the luxuriousness of the atmosphere as I sip on a wonderful glass of Pinot Noir and people watch to my delight.

The Rave theater is great, I’m glad you gave it an A. The sound system rocks, and it’s always clean…which is not always the case at some of the other movie theaters around my area.

There are several stores that some people may have never heard of, but that’s what makes it more and more exciting than your everyday stores that you see at every shopping center. Overall, I give Destin Commons an A+, and think it’s well worth the 45 minute drive from Panama City, especially this time of year when it’s so decorative all along 98. I love it!

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