The Restaurant Experience
Feb. 24th, 2006 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerIt had been a looooooong time since we'd taken the girls out to eat -- I think our last family trip out might have been last fall to Sea Salt -- but tonight we went out as a family to Manny's Tortas.
Kiera does much better now. She did ask to be excused when she was done eating, but was cooperative when we told her she needed to stay at the table. Molly ate her whole sandwich, both halves. (Tortas are Mexican sandwiches -- toasted baguette-type pieces of bread with meat, refried beans, cheese, avocado, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes and lettuce, and chipotle mayo. They're really, really good -- crunchy, sweet, and salty all together. The one we go to is on Lake Street in the Coliseum building (right near the Rainbow at the Lake & Minnehaha corner). It's right next door to a Denny's, and why anyone would eat at Denny's when they could go next door and eat a torta instead, well, I'll never understand.
Manny's has a menu board, and Molly could see it from where she was sitting. All items are listed in Spanish, then in English. As she polished off her sandwich and chips, she looked up at the board again, mulled it over, and said, "For dessert...I think I'd like the strawberries and cream."
You know, this is one of the ramifications of having a child who can read that I hadn't really thought about. They can read menus. We always edited menus for Molly -- we just didn't tell her about things we didn't want her asking for (because they were expensive, or because they'd be a lot of trouble for us) and we told her the dessert options only if we'd decided we were getting dessert.
Molly then changed her mind and said she'd prefer the tiramisu, which was just as well; they were out of strawberries. After initially disappointing her by telling her she'd have to get dessert at home, we relented and got a piece of tiramisu (which Molly and I shared) and carrot cake (which Ed and Kiera shared).
When I was a kid, I remember one time when I was seven or eight that my grandfather took us all out to Red Lobster. This was a fabulous treat, as I loved seafood (still do). Instead of ordering off the children's menu, I wanted one of the combination platters that included shrimp, crab, lobster tail...the works. I remember the waitress looking at my parents and saying, "she'll never be able to eat all that," and my father snickering and saying something like, "oh, you just wait and see."
I may have been unable to finish the potato. I think I ate everything else.
Kiera does much better now. She did ask to be excused when she was done eating, but was cooperative when we told her she needed to stay at the table. Molly ate her whole sandwich, both halves. (Tortas are Mexican sandwiches -- toasted baguette-type pieces of bread with meat, refried beans, cheese, avocado, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes and lettuce, and chipotle mayo. They're really, really good -- crunchy, sweet, and salty all together. The one we go to is on Lake Street in the Coliseum building (right near the Rainbow at the Lake & Minnehaha corner). It's right next door to a Denny's, and why anyone would eat at Denny's when they could go next door and eat a torta instead, well, I'll never understand.
Manny's has a menu board, and Molly could see it from where she was sitting. All items are listed in Spanish, then in English. As she polished off her sandwich and chips, she looked up at the board again, mulled it over, and said, "For dessert...I think I'd like the strawberries and cream."
You know, this is one of the ramifications of having a child who can read that I hadn't really thought about. They can read menus. We always edited menus for Molly -- we just didn't tell her about things we didn't want her asking for (because they were expensive, or because they'd be a lot of trouble for us) and we told her the dessert options only if we'd decided we were getting dessert.
Molly then changed her mind and said she'd prefer the tiramisu, which was just as well; they were out of strawberries. After initially disappointing her by telling her she'd have to get dessert at home, we relented and got a piece of tiramisu (which Molly and I shared) and carrot cake (which Ed and Kiera shared).
When I was a kid, I remember one time when I was seven or eight that my grandfather took us all out to Red Lobster. This was a fabulous treat, as I loved seafood (still do). Instead of ordering off the children's menu, I wanted one of the combination platters that included shrimp, crab, lobster tail...the works. I remember the waitress looking at my parents and saying, "she'll never be able to eat all that," and my father snickering and saying something like, "oh, you just wait and see."
I may have been unable to finish the potato. I think I ate everything else.
