My seven year old son had to write a review or critique of something in his first grade class. He chose to write about the restaurant that’s just opened near us (and I’m actually bartending at a couple of times a week). I had to share the review because in my thoroughly biased opinion, it is adorable.
7 year old’s opinion
My eldest son, who is now 12, said that it should’ve read “if you like high quality food” instead of “chicken fingers”, but everyone’s a critic.
Some people might see this and may think, “Vanessa allows her kids chicken fingers?” but that is often a misconception on my food views. Yes, I do allow chicken fingers and fries and other stuff, just not all the time. Plus The Spinning Wheel’s chicken fingers are whole pieces of breast meat with their own breading. It’s not made of mechanically separated parts mixed with who-knows-what.
I have a couple of recipes for those who’d like to make their own at home. My original one is here and another one has a crunchy coating. They’re much, much healthier than the majority of prepared chicken fingers/nuggets/popcorn you’ll find in the stores or fast food places.
One thing I find I often need to do if we eat out and they order from the children’s menu, is to order a side of vegetables or a salad, because too commonly, restaurants don’t serve vegetables with the kids’ meals.
If you take your kids out to eat, do they share their opinions on the food? Do they get a balanced meal?
Kid’s menus suck monkey butts. However I also try to not be too confrontational with my opinion when out with my daughter. Often our trips to restaurants are out of time constraints, or general fatigue, so the not often meal of fries and chicken fingers or grilled cheese won’t kill us. In general, kids menus are not balanced in my opinion. I have been on all sides of this die, as a consumer, parent, restaurant proprietor, and chef … it is hard to come up with a winning combination. My best scenario is to let the kids order what they want and then try to round it out with my order, and swap food to build something balanced.
All that said, I do really appreciate the places that do make an effort to recognize kids by offering, for instance, an 8 oz. smoothie instead of 20 oz., or eases back on the syrups on the drinks or accommodates making a sushi roll without wasabi.
Cheers,
sfc