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AIBU?

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Original poster

To say no to pizza pasta again?

445 replies

karmakameleon · 12/12/2015 11:57

So I'm trying to arrange dinner with a friend and her family and she's suggested a pizza pasta place. Fairly standard kid food but my problem is that DS (3yrs old) doesn't like it. DS will happily eat Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican amongst other things, so I don't think he can be described as fussy, but just not pizza and pasta.

As you imagine this comes up regularly when we eat out with friends and in the past I've taken the view that DS can have some bread and fill up on ice cream after. But this time I've had enough and put my foot down as I just feel it's not fair on DS to always be the one that can't eat and ends up going home hungry. Also I know that DS really doesn't like pizza pasta as I've offered it to him a hundred times but I'm guessing that my friend's child hasn't tried half the options I've suggested. (The specific places I've mentioned to her all do some mild options in smaller sized portions although not specifically a children's menu.) And if the worst came to the worst, surely her DS could pick at his main and then have lots of ice cream for pudding like mine has had to in the past?

Anyway, the whole thing is proving quite traumatic, she's not taking up any of my suggestions and sticking fairly rigidly to her original choice and I'm getting the feeling that the whole thing is off unless I do as I'm told compromise. So now I'm starting to feel guilty and think maybe I'm being a bit unreasonable as it is a fairly standard choice. But then it's not DS's fault he doesn't like it...

OP posts:
jay55 · 12/12/2015 15:52

Is it possible the friend wants the first choice for a non food reason, they have vouchers for it or something?

PurpleGreenAvocado · 12/12/2015 15:53

YANBU. I was due to go out for my birthday meal this month with some friends, I cancelled it in the end because I decided to go for a curry or a chinese and two of the three friends said they wouldn't go unless I went for a pizza (which I dislike) because they didn't like curry or chinese. People can be so stuck in their ways! (and I went for a chinese with some different friends and had a lovely time)

Thingsthatmakeugoummmm · 12/12/2015 15:53

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

hollinhurst84 · 12/12/2015 15:54

I sort of get it. I have a friend who will only eat at a certain few places ( pasta and pizza!) so anywhere else we suggest is refused
Gets wearing after a bit when I don't want to go out and eat there again and want to enjoy some food and bored of eating at the same few places
But that's as an adult so...

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 12/12/2015 15:56

Spicy pizza?

diddl · 12/12/2015 15:56

OP is the problem that her son only likes pizza or pasta?

Madcats · 12/12/2015 15:56

Aged 3, DD was just excited to go anywhere where her drink came with a bendy straw (and to go out with her friends)!

cleaty · 12/12/2015 15:58

I think OPs friends are unreasonable. It is easy to go somewhere that does pasta/pizza and other food.

Merguez · 12/12/2015 16:11

Cant you order an American Hot or something like that for your ds?

walkinginmercury · 12/12/2015 16:12

Pizza/pasta
Pizza and pasta
Pizza&pasta

Not pizza pasta

Maryz · 12/12/2015 16:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

laundryeverywhere · 12/12/2015 16:14

I can't believe there's a Japanese restaurant, but no pub!

MrsCampbellBlack · 12/12/2015 16:18

If I was your friend I'd just be amazed that the restaurant choice had to be dictated by a 3 year old.

Mind you - sounds like you are both being dictated to by your 3 year olds.

I'd just choose wherever served the best wine Wine

Honestly - it just really doesn't matter.

AyeAmarok · 12/12/2015 16:25

Bet she's reading this thread.

InTheBox · 12/12/2015 16:28

walkinginmercury Obviously highlighting the important aspect of it all Grin

Catsize · 12/12/2015 16:32

Go to the park with a picnic?? (Radical, I know...)

cleaty · 12/12/2015 16:34

This time of year? It is December.

TendonQueen · 12/12/2015 16:35

In December?

rookiemere · 12/12/2015 16:44

This alone should earn this thread a place in classics:

However I can't see what's wrong with giraffe!

I find the plates aren't long enough...

unlucky83 · 12/12/2015 16:46

I just want to say I remember being very smug when my DD1 would eat ANYTHING - I would take her out and not feed her off the kids menus because it was all boring and things she wasn't used to - all nuggets etc -it all came with chips or was something really boring like macaroni cheese. I would ask for small adult portions. She didn't really like bought pizza -she did enjoy homemade - with onions, spinach, mushrooms and goats cheese. How smug was I when the only vegetable a friend's DC would eat was broccoli smothered in tomato ketchup...
Fast forward a few years and my DD1 would only eat plain pasta sprinkled with grated cheese and friend's DC was enjoying venison burgers...
DD1 (14) is getting slightly better recently ...but still is the fussiest eater on the planet - the only pizza she will eat now is Domino's pepperoni . I swear if cheese (cheddar - mature not mild thankfully at least) started being rationed she'd starve...and she won't eat anything remotely spicy. (And she isn't a vegetarian - but there is hardly any meat she will eat...)
Meanwhile DD2 up to about 5 loved spicy food - the hotter the better - now at 8 hates it -won't even eat Korma...she also went through a spell of being a vegetarian...sigh ...
In our house something like a roast beef dinner is treated as if they had had poison put down in front of them ...

Headofthehive55 · 12/12/2015 16:47

Not sure why Mexican or giraffe is seen as adventurous and above yourself and Italian seen as standard! Confused

PassiveAgressiveQueen · 12/12/2015 16:48

My son isn't an adventurous eater but he loves mexican, loves fajitas.

ovenchips · 12/12/2015 16:58

Meals out like that are a bit like organising a work Xmas lunch or an extended family meal out. You generally end up going for the least 'adventurous' option to sort of very unsatisfactorily cater for everyone, though majority wouldn't probably choose the particular place/ menu.

If I eat out with a group it's almost never to a restaurant or food of my choosing. Because X doesn't like Y, A will only ever eat at B style restaurants and person 1 says even the smell at restaurant 2 makes their eyes water.

But who the feck cares?!

You are choosing to have an absurd locking of horns about an unimportant matter, fuelled by a motivation that you are somehow fighting your 3 year old's corner.

I think you've established they aren't ever going to say "totally your choice of restaurant this time, we'll go anywhere". My advice is accept that eating with them regularly is probably never going to be your first choice and let it go. Or decide to stop eating out with them when you meet up.

You don't get equal balance/ entitlement with others in every single area of your and your child's life. You just don't.

rookiemere · 12/12/2015 17:08

OP - Pizza Express offers this as a starter :

New Risotto Mio

Chestnut & closed cup mushrooms in a creamy white wine risotto with parsley, garlic oil and pine kernels, finished with Gran Milano cheese, fresh parsley and truffle oil

which sounds yum and surely sophisticated enough for your DS - I love truffle oil, I have just bought a small bottle of it and have to be physically restrained from putting it on absolutely everything.

Or I don't know what your personal thoughts are about pizza and pasta, but perhaps you could order a risotto from the adult's menu and something from the children's menu then share it between yourself and your DS.

Or there is always the calamari starter.

Look I'm not mad on Pizza Express either, I find it a bit emperor's new clothes and if I have to have pizza for my dinner I'd rather go to Pizza Hut where it's cheaper and I get a salad bar thrown in as well. But it's good for group meals, they're generally fairly understanding about small DCs and it's reliable.

Sometimes meeting up with people is not just about what you're going to eat, it's about the company and sociability and yes as per the poster above, sometimes you have to go with the lowest common denominator if you genuinely want to meet up.

ToysDontWorkNoMore · 12/12/2015 17:33

If friends' DCs are genuinely fussy, which many are, and it's normal even in the countries where people eat lots of spicy food (I know from my own experience), then eating in e.g. a Japanese restaurant is not as easy as you think. The DC might take one look at the place, sniff the air and refuse to sit down. It will feel scary for them. So contrasting that with your DC's boredom, I would say that it the situation is not balanced. It may well be that they can only go to a handful of restaurants without having a distressed child in their hands, so can't go anywhere else. If you find that hard (and I understand you might, although not as much as the parents of the fussy child likely do), maybe don't meet up with them for food?