Real menus for children - campaign?

I'd be in on this. If big companies are serious about their corporate social responsibility, they should be encouraging healthy eating, not just acquiescing to beige demands.

Now that I have two DCs, though, I no longer bother with children's menus - they just share an adult portion between them.

fuzzpig There are always one or two posters who will disagree with the subject of any thread. It's best to ignore ignore ignore IMO Don't take it personally you're doing a great job.

Oh sorry, fuzzpig, I didn't see you were upset. Sorry if I seemed to be piling on.

I like this idea. it really bugs me that kids portions are only available in crap food. When we eat out, the kids want to order what they like, not fish fingers etc. This invariably means I put up with a lot of waste or don't order for myself

I was thinking about this along the lines of the person who said something like "alongside "we believe you" and "this is my child"? pshaw" (I paraphrase)

I kind of agreed with their point and thought maybe this only makes sense as part of a wider kind of "real food for real people (children)" kind of initiative about not feeding kids crap in general

and then I thought UGH "healthy" eating advice for children / families is moralistic, dangerous, usually wrong. It leads to things like no sugar squash being dished out in schools, and reality TV shows that berate women (always women) for putting chips on the table. no more of that, please.

But - there is such a thing as food deserts - and it's important. Maybe the angle on this - the thing that this could be a part of - is reasonably priced real food available to all (without saying anything at all about health)

I fond the attitude of waiting staff really off putting.

Last autumn, my brother got married and the night before we had a big family meal, all ordered in advance.

The waiter categorically refused to believe that my then-9 year old dd2 had ordered mussels. Of course she had! One of the highlights of our trips to NW Scotland is her plucking them from the shore and eating them an hour later.

She got her mussels.

And then there was the issue of her medium-rare steak........

She got that too!

(Dd1 and ds aren't quite so adventurous!)

Last summer we went to Italy (Sorrento and Rome). No kids menus but half portions everywhere if asked, no if a dc asked for olives, or pesto, or clams, or prawns. My dd2 was interested in the deep fried mini octopus being served at another table one night - the waiter noticed and they brought her a small bowl to try - no charge! Funny enough, when ds was 8 months and dd2 not born, we were also in Italy and the wee octopus were his favourite, after a similar free trial! Can't think that restaurants in the uk would mainly be happy serving that to a 8-9 month old!!

But then we were also able to cater to (fussy) 14yo dd1. Margarita pizza, salad, garlic bread, bruschetta and pasta arrabiata were available everywhere. She ate shedloads more veg there!

Glad you are ok.

"though round here they never seem to last long"

Yes, it's a tough business.

We haven't had this issue, always found the places we eat have half decent menus for kids or they are happy to give you a smaller portion. Maybe it's a regional thing?

I've never heard of 90% of the restaurants mentioned on this thread never mind eating in them. Not sure why people keep bringing up pizza for kids either, I know quite a few kids in our circle of friends won't touch them.

If we take the kids for meals out nowadays we tend to go for specific cuisines, either Chinese, Indian, Greek or Italian. It's easier to get a mixture and all share or a banquet/mezze so the quality is better and they tend to be smaller family businesses that are more welcoming of children.

I'm truly sorry if I upset you fuzzpig - really wasn't my intention. And I do agree that everywhere should do adult meals for a smaller price - I didn't realise they didn't!

I think it is the quality I mind, more than the content. DD is perfectly happy to eat sausage and chips, or pizza, or pasta, if it's nice, and I am happy for her to have that if that's what she wants. I don't want to have to coax her to eat slices of flabby horrible pale microwaved sausage and pay for the privilege (when I could and do cook nicer sausages at home and cook them better for less money) and I don't want to pay for a child's meal and find it to be low quality, tasting horrible and not worth the paltry six quid. Which I agree isn't that much to pay for a meal. But it's a lot to pay for something that is much less nice than the same meal you would serve at home. Sorry, does that make sense a bit? If I go out for a meal, I expect it to be of the same or higher quality compared to what I serve at home (we are not precious, we love takeaways, onion rings, chips and pizza as much as the next person) and to be an enjoyable experience for everyone, yes, even the child. I just expect the cook to have taken as much care over the child's meal as the adults' meals. That's what this boils down to for me. And if children were ordering off the adult menu, the chef would probably have a pre-ordained flight plan to follow and dish up something nicer, IMO.

Fuzz, hope I haven't upset you!

I know more than i would ideally like to about failed restaurants!

I think it's a good idea OP.

FinDeSemaine I agree the quality is generally better here.

I don't think you handled it wrong. There are people who disagree; that doesn't mean it is your fault!

The difference between sausage and chips (or similar non-challenging meals) in France compared to sausage and chips in somewhere in the UK can often be quite amazing, though. French: proper sausage, mostly meat rather than filler, fried so it is brown and crisped up a bit on the skin, good chips, salad on the side. UK: microwaved previously cooked bread-based sausage shoved under the grill to brown a bit, flabby chips, no veg bar perhaps some tinned beans. In both cases I am talking about a low-priced supermarket caff meal, nothing fancy.

As a parent, I have stopped going to the chains that don't serve nice food for children. They are still serving the same crap. I realise that many children are happy with sweet slop but is this something we should encourage? Or should we perhaps let them know that that is why some people don't want to eat there? I mean, I'm in London. There are tons of options for us. Tons. Of the ones near me, Carluccio's and Wagamama are literally the only places where I consider the adult food and children's food to be of the same quality. Pizza Express is OK but we have often been served genuinely vile salads there - very old cucumber and pepper with a dry surface on it so you can see it's been sitting there for ages. They don't serve that to adults. Why can't they cut up the cucumber fresh for children too, so that they will actually eat it? I wouldn't eat cucumber like that. It's not nice to eat! Yes, I mention it. No, things haven't improved. We don't go there often but it's always the same.

I've also got a main for the kids to share, or got, say, a main and garlic bread for me and one child to share.