Fondue is a Swiss communal dish shared at the table in an earthenware pot (caquelon) over a small burner (rechaud). The term comes from the French fondre (to melt) in the past tense fondu (melted) with gender added in the phrase la raclette fondue (the grated Swiss cheese, melted), hence shortened to fondue. A cheese mix in the pot is kept warm as a semi-liquid sauce into which diners use forks to dip bits of food, most often bread. Whilst cheese fondues are the most widely known there are other pot and dipping ingredients. Fondue is most often kept warm by a wicked or gel alcohol burner, or by tealights.

Some tips to making beef, chicken and seafood as an asian hotpot with vegetable broth at home. Forget paying $95 at the Melting Pot restaurant.. sheesh.

Fondue is surprisingly hot!!! We just love it! I had it for the first time this week...So delicious!

good hot pot

Also known as a Chinese hot pot or steamboat (in Singapore), this is not unlike a fondue pot, in that it allows food to be cooked at the table. The design is different from that of a fondue, however, as it consists of a central funnel, which is filled with burning charcoal, surrounded by a moat in which hot stock is placed

BEIJING -- In the village of Laishui, about 100 miles southwest of China's capital city, Li De Yin runs a small workshop that seems frozen in pre-industrial time. Bare-chested workers heat copper bowls over an open-coal fire then hammer the yellow metal into hot pots, the Chinese version of fondue pots.