Eating out as a family should be a pleasurable experience, I’ve no doubt that many families take it for granted when they take their children out to a nice restaurant and order their food from the menu. On Friday we made our way into Peterborough so that Hubby could have his eyes tested and we could do a bit of shopping. After we had finished at the opticians the children were complaining that they were hungry so we decided to go for some lunch. Ordinarily we would have headed straight for McDonalds because we know the tiddlers will eat it (most of the time) but then we decided to throw caution to the wind and instead took them to Pizza Express.
Little Bean and Beanie Boy aren’t always the easiest of children to feed as many of you will know from my Tales of a Fussy Eater, Beanie Boy is definitely much better than his sister but unfortunately he has some learned behaviour from wanting to copy EVERYTHING she does! One thing I often get them both to eat at home is pizza so we figured it could be worth a shot. Hubby and I were both very impressed with the Piccolo Menu (children’s menu) at just £6.45 for four courses. Little Bean is a big lover of bread so I felt quietly confident that she might try the dough balls. She took one bite and LOVED them so much she asked if she could have more, before she had finished the first plate! I couldn’t quite convince her to eat the salad which accompanied the dough balls but Beanie Boy didn’t mind digging in. Next up they ate a margherita pizza, followed by a chocolate ice cream sundae and finally a Bambinoccino (warm frothy milk sprinkled with chocolate). Little Bean enjoyed it all so much as she took her last mouthful she declared “we have GOT to come here again Mummy!” and that is something I never thought I would hear her say about a restaurant.
As a family we really enjoyed spending that time together, in fact it’s the first meal in as long as I can remember that we have actually ‘enjoyed’ together without the need for shouting, bribing or indeed crying of any sort. Our meal out was definitely a date to be marked in our history!!
Wow! Excellent work!! I look forward to and dread meals out in equal measure- we tend to opt for carveries and buffets so I can keep the little ones plied with food to pick at from the moment we sit down!
Have been very tempted with Pizza Express, especially as they seem to have regular deals, and it looks like a good children’s menu… I might keep it up my sleeve for a treat!
Pizza Express always comes up trumps for us too. Its one of the only restaurants I feel comfortable taking them – actually ASK is quite good too.