to think a children's meal should be enough for a four year old?

[CustardLover]

Had a nice lunch today in Carluccios - we all liked it, especially DS who's 4. He liked it so much (penne with tomato sauce) that he finished it in minutes - there was about 10 pieces of pasta in the sauce. I had to order extra bread and broccoli as well as give him my pasta to make sure he'd had enough food. When the waitress was taking the supplemental orders she commented that I should have ordered him an adult portion, which surprised me. He's not a fussy eater but he's not gluttonous and he's FOUR. AIBU to think that a children's meal, at £6.50, should have enough pasta in tomato sauce to satisfy a pre-schooler? Or am I being naive and do you have to switch over to the adult menu much earlier than I had expected? Restaurant owners - what is your expectation of child diners?

We eat at Carluccios a lot and my 4 yo twins can never finish the pasta - a lot more than 10 pieces, more like 50! Sounds like you just got a small portion

Think you had a stingy branch as well. We went on Valentines day and my little girl had about 6 breadsticks, the chicken and potatoes which when it came out was not far off the adult sized portion of chicken, followed by a huge pot of fruit at least 10-12 large chunks of melon, pineapple etc.

I always think Jamie's Italian kids portions are tiny - but they seem to fill up my nephew and niece - not been since my little one is eating.

I see someone else mentioned strada, I thought their children's meals were excellent for my 9 and 11yo. They had 2 good slices of flat garlic bread, then a big pizza and a decent pudding (ds says it was the best one ever) plus a drink.

My 15yo sometimes orders from the child menu. Mind you, she's got a smaller appetite than ds, who's 8yo, and has since he was about 2yo.

We go regularly. The portions are large! You must have been unlucky.

My 10 month old would demolish that. 10 bits of pasta is ridiculous. I would have complained.

Agree about prezzos kids meals being big. The tots meal for £3.95 we had was huge for the money. Hungry 10 month old still ate the lot though, and some of daddy's carbonara!

We went to Carluccios in the Easter hols: my 7 y/o was defeated by the pasta dish. It was massive. Probably about 50 pieces of pasta along with sauce adn meatballs. I'd have struggled with it.

Incidentally, I found Carluccios to be nowhere near as nice food-wise as Ask or Bella Italia. funny!

10 pieces of pasta sounds tiny. My 5 and 6 year olds don't always finish a child's portion depending on the restaurant but I wouldn't be happy with that. I cooked pasta for them this evening and they probably had about 30-40 pieces of penne in tomato sauce, plus chicken and fruit afterwards.

I was unlucky and in hindsight should have said so at the time - good to know that we don't need to abandon the children's menu yet! And I'll be looking into Prezzo too, sounds great! Thanks everyone.

Our Prezzo kid's meal fed three children- aged 3, 2 and 1. Plus bits from our plates to try something new too.

Nandos have good kid portions too.

Ds is 9 and it's only in the last year we've started ordering an adult meal and not always. Dd is 5 and I wouldn't order her an adults meal unless there was no choice