Restaurant Baby Food

Not everyone can be fortunate enough to have a restaurant like Bean Sprouts that caters to children and children's taste. And honestly, sometimes it's nice to eat somewhere grown up. This weekend we took a little family trip and had quite an experience finding food for Sprout to eat. I did bring food along for her, but I was feeling lazy and/or I couldn't find where we'd packed the food, so we branched out more than usual. Typically babies get bread or crackers at restaurants, but Sprout isn't really big enough for that yet, so we had to get a little more creative.

The first place we went to we ordered dry mashed potatoes for Sprout (dry as in no gravy or butter added on top). They weren't plain, which gave me a moment or two of concern, but Sprout didn't mind. And any kid of mine has to learn to like garlic. I thought Sprout didn't like the potatoes because DH was feeding her while I took Bug to the bathroom. Actually she ate about half of a huge mound and was just tired of eating by the time I saw her. DH said she devoured them. This was the first time she'd had potatoes, but she seemed to really like them, small lumps and all.

For dinner we went out to a nicer family-friendly restaurant. DH and I each gave up a bit of our steamed broccoli and after wrestling with my little greased pig (i.e. Sprout) at my plate for about 10 minutes, I finally decided to see if she'd actually sit up in a high chair. She did and shoved broccoli into her little mouth as fast as she could. A big girl high chair AND chunks of food? What more could a little Sprout want?!

Lunch the next day was at a cute little soda fountain in Eagle River, WI. Unfortunately when I asked about steamed veggies I got a slightly horrified look. They did have a salad bar and I put a bit of what looked like mashed avocado and some peas into my sandwich basket. The peas are always well liked and I gave her just a bit of the avocado and she seemed pretty happy with it. I tasted it and it was pretty bland, so I got her a bigger serving.

Either my taste buds are dying (possible - I've got a cold) or they changed up their recipe, because my little Sprout made a face and started gacking. I looked in her mouth and pulled out a bit of jalepeno. Ooops! The avocado was a familar food, but obviously the jalepeno was not. Thankfully she's had no ill effects from this.

Our final meal out was lunch at the Liberty Bell Chalet in Hurley, WI. A girl just needs some of the best pizza and salad on the planet some times. The bigger eaters enjoyed our pizzas (Bug ate half of her cheese pizza - go Bug!) and Sprout had gnocchi. Gnocchi is essentially an Italian potato dumpling. Now that I think about it, it actually has egg and flour in it, two things I've been trying to avoid for another month or so. So, gnocchi probably wasn't the best choice for my 6 month old, but boy oh boy did she love it. She has a hard time getting Cheerios into her mouth because they get soggy and stick to her hands. The gnocchi have a better consistency for her and she was so proud to get them into her mouth as often as she did. Thankfully she didn't have a reaction to the flour or egg, not that I really thought she would, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I definitely plan on buying these for her once she's old enough to well tolerate all of the ingredients.

So yeah, I should plan better if I know we're going to be traveling and eating in restaurants, but at the same time I want to expose my baby to a wide variety of foods and not just what's on the kid's menu as she gets older. I feel that this weekend's adventure was a success.