to think child friendly restaurants should not put down piping hot plates in front of my two year old

[Judy7]

or a glass of water and (adult size) knife and fork in front of my nine-month-old? And not smother everything in the children's menu in salt? There's more to child friendly than highchairs and fishfingers on the menu...speaking of which why can't they just do small portions of adult food?

What dino said - salt is plain daft but tableware and hot food is your job, I'm afraid. You are in a restaurant, there is going to be hot food and knives and forks.

What annoys me is that they nearly always bring the children's food out last. But I can't just tuck into mine in front of them. And then once their's arrive and I have chopped it up and blown it and put ketchup on mine is going cold.

Actually it doesn't bother me anymore but used to be annoying when they were younger.

Why not ask for a spare plate and take some food off your plate for your LOs instead of paying for a child's meal? It's often cheaper doing that and you can get a better selection of food IMHO. Cutlery can easily be moved.

Tend also to agree with dino and edam.
We just had a holiday in France and in two semi-smart and lovely restaurants in hotels the children's menu included mini versions of stuff on the adult set menu. It was absolutely delicious and the whole lot was wolfed down, including salad

i dont order kids meals for dd3 (age 2) i ask for an extra plate and share mine with her.

hot food, plates, glasses cuttlery is your resposability i#'m afraid.

i have thought this many times.... when the dc see the food they want to eat it, so don't understand that they need to wait until it is not so hot. then we grown-ups have to wait as well or it won't be fair on the dc. stupid restaurant people!

Of course I put the hot food and cutlery out of the baby's reach. But they are pretty daft to bring it to a baby in the first place IMO. Especially piping hot plates. If they boast they're child friendly, what's wrong with a small, cold plate - or better still a plastic one?

Agree about the salt - also ime waiting staff are teenagers who know bugger all about babies, usually.

And I think only when you have seen a 1 year old do that go-go-Gadget stretchy arm thing will you believe that everything on a table needs to be 1 metre away from a baby whose reach seems to be about 50cm. So you can't really expect anyone else to know how quick your baby might be to grab something they shouldn't.

Yes, up to you to keep cutlery etc out of your baby's reach.

Depends on the child's (and mother's!) appetite bookwormmum. Nowadays I quite often order an adult meal for my two (age 6 and 3) to share at.

we ate out recently (we were treated) and instead of a childrens menu you just ordered a small portion from teh adults menu.

It does depend on where you are. Not up to waitress to move cutlery and i would sit any younger children further away from the table if they were at the grabbing stage anyway.

We still quite often order an adults meal to share between the DCs

also have never had a n issue with salt on food, including adults. wazs it a chain of restaurants? I want to avoid them if they are!

Are you going to name and shame judy? IMO many establishments in the UK claim to be child-friendly but don't really deliver. giraffe an honourable exception, Wagamama also very good - but the queues are the price you pay!

I agree Judy, I had this happen a few weeks ago. The food was lukewarm but the plates were scalding! I E-mailed the chain to complain. Haven't had a reply yet!

Harvester are pretty good for family friendly meals, lots of finger-food type children's meals. I prefer Frankie & Bennies for the adult meals but they can be a bit slow at times.

This is a bugbear of mine too

DD's food always seems to arrive piping hot on a china/porcelain plate.

Not so bad now but when she was younger we carried a plastic plate and small cutlery everywhere so that she could eat her meal without me having a heart attack every 5 minutes. Transferring the food from the hot plate to her plastic one helped cool it down too.

frankie and bennys is fab, if a little loud for my tastes lol.

great kids food there.

harvester is my childrens favourite, they lvoe the salad cart and ribs. they have changed their kids menu so its all just smaller versions of adult meals, which i think is great as they dont want nuggets and bangers and mash, they want realy food

it's so annoying that you have to request a cold plate for a lo.

i take our little sets of cutlery and glasses with us if we know we are eating out, however if we eat out without planning it is difficult for them (and us!)

I have no problem asking for smaller portions of adult meals and before they could polish off the majority of a proper sized meal i wasn't adverse to asking for an extra plate and sharing one meal between the two of them. when ds2 was on goats milk i also took in goat milk yohurt and was never told i couldn't feed it to him for pudding.

i also ask the restaurant to rinse the cutlery after use so i can take it away without getting food all over my bag! but then what's the tip for (service) so why not?!

Pizza Express is usually our regular, or our local pub that does fab food

they usually get chips there (no salt on them) and get impatient if hot

move all glasses etc when the water takes drinks order, I tell them to take it all away