 |
|
One of the perks of being a stay-at-home-body-dad is that I get to travel on the wife’s business trips, all expenses paid. Well, I suppose all my expenses are always paid, regardless of if it’s her work, or simply her paying the bill.
The night we arrived, we ate at the hotel restaurant, which was actually rather good. Standing hand in hand with my boy at the entrance to the restaurant waiting to be seated, the hostess finally noticed us and asked, ‘Just you?’
‘No, for both of us,’ I said in bewilderment, as I motioned towards my boy. Is she blind in one eye? Is he not considered a person? Perhaps he doesn’t get a chair and will have to sit on the floor.
She grabbed two menus from the counter and motioned for us to follow her in. She set both menus down at a table. Why she set down two, I will never know, my boy can’t quite read yet at 14 months. Then I asked her for a high chair. It became apparent to me then, that she thought I was talking about someone else that would be joining us, other than my son. She completely ignored the fact that he was there, that he was a living human being that would require a small space in their restaurant to occupy.
But, they had the best kids menu I have ever seen. My boy got a half breast of grilled chicken and huge spears of perfectly cooked broccoli. I was pleasantly surprised with that menu option. Usually we either beg the waiter for a plain piece of chicken for the boy, or just feed him what we get, because the kids menus always suck ass.
The following day, it was just me while Lilly was out schmoozing with her colleagues. The hotel restaurant was closed until dinner, so we went and checked out Jimmy Buffet's tourist trap of a restaurant called Margaritaville, no less. I felt that it would suck before we walked in the door. How can a musician whose only good songs have been played to death, and his other songs are goofy as hell, and all he sings about is drinking and living on his own personal island, expect to start a successful restaurant chain that offers quality food. Successful, perhaps. Quality, no.
Why is it that most restaurants want to give our kids myocardial infarctions by the time they hit their teens? I’m beginning to smell a conspiracy between the restaurant owners, the chefs, and the American Heart Association. See, the owners know that most people eat like crap so they put it on the menu, the chefs that aren’t good enough to start their own place take any job they can get, and the AHA would go out of business if people’s hearts stopped stopping.
Is it really necessary to offer mac and cheese, deep fried chicken, deep fried shrimp, deep fried potatoes, and deep fried water on the kids menus? Hey restaurant owners, if you want returning customers, then stop killing them off one kids menu at a time. It’s reminiscent of big tobacco, it seems that with as many people as they kill, the only way they stay in business is because tomorrow's new customers are still in the womb.
The chicken Caesar salad tasted like canned chicken with mayonnaise dressing. All I could stomach were the stale croutons. And the kids menu was exactly like I described above, deep fried or straight out of a package. Fortunately, my boy has acquired my taste for quality food and spit out his deep fried chicken tenders. The only thing tender about it was the tender way he spit it out all over the waitresses hand as she went to grab his cheeks. Lay off the cheeks lady! We left the food on the floor and went back to the hotel, where I apologized to my boy and redeemed my fatherly rights by getting him a banana and a $10 Naked Juice drink. Sorry son, I will never subject you to kids meals again. Live, I want you to live!
Share this post!
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by ciara, September 08, 2009
melisa-wow, least your boys would share & be o.k. if i were to try telling hubs or stepson to split an entree w anyone, they'd have a cow and say it wasn't enough food. i love the classic, 'he's a growing boy'(one that lots of people use). ugh.
-
- +0
-
-
written by Daddy Files, September 09, 2009
But as with almost everything in life, all things in moderation.
-
- +0
-
-
written by BellaDaddy, September 09, 2009
-
- +0
-
-
written by Melisa with one s, September 09, 2009
-
- +0
-
-
written by PensivePapa, September 09, 2009
-
- +0
-
-
written by WeaselMomma, September 09, 2009
-
- +0
-
-
written by DevotedDad, September 09, 2009
-
- +0
-
-
written by CharliePATpk, September 09, 2009
That's why we eat out only{i] as a treat or in unavoidable situations. Works out in the end.
-
- +0
-
-
written by PensivePapa, September 10, 2009
When a cook dumps a bag of frozen chicken fingers into a fryer that isn't on a regular cleaning schedule, I will agree that the resulting entrée will be less than satisfactory and cheap to prepare. I just don't like to see frying as a whole being totally dismissed.
-
- +0
-
-
written by BikiniMom, February 27, 2010
Do children eat smaller portions? Of course they do. Why can't a child eat from their parent's plate if they are too small to eat a proper portion?
My youngest child is now 13 (oldest 17 1/2) and they ate what I ate both at home and in a restaurant. Heck, I even made my own baby food with my first because we were too poor to afford the jarred food. LOL When we had more children and we had a few extra dollars I still made my own food because then I knew 100% that what my children were consuming was healthy, no preservatives, chemicals, etc. I kept re-using the empty baby food jars and put them in the freezer or refrigerator. It wasn't all that hard. Just put our table food into a blender with milk/water/juice depending on what when into the blender. Obviously before their GI tracts and palates could handle spice I would cook separately for the baby but it's not like a baby is a food critic!
I agree that most kid's menus are horrifying (as are most of the adult menus depending on the establishment). I just don't understand the concept of ordering "special food" for a child. I mean, are they second class citizen's because I think most of us can agree that by and large most of the options offered on kid's menus IS SUBSTANDARD.
-
- +0
-
-
Although it gets MUCH more expensive when the kids turn 10 or 12 and can order off the adult menu, it's such a relief, nutritionally.