kid stuff
Posted by Sarah
The New York Times had a nice little gem of a piece in their food section last week talking about the pros and cons of kids’ menus in restaurants. The author was heavy on the cons and came down especially hard on the ever-present chicken fingers and fries but Meg and I found ourselves torn. While we’re both fans of the chicken fingers (I’m a fan of most anything that’s deep fried), we are, as Meg put it, “kinda con, but not exclusively con.” Basically we think the kids’ menu can be a good thing but it is kind of wrong to go to a great Thai restaurant (or Turkish, or Italian, or…) and order chicken fingers. We understand why places have kids’ menus- kids aren’t always open to trying new food stuff and a lot of spicy foods don’t agree with their little tummies- but there really should be some other option than the generic fare offered on just about every kids’ menu in the country. Our thought: the kids’ menu ought to offer simplified, kid-friendly (and kid-sized) versions of the items on the regular menu. The restaurants already have the ingredients around and the little ones get introduced to new flavors. Everybody wins!