Chowpups, The Care and Feeding Thereof (Restaurants)

One of the grandmothers in our family lives in the same city as one of our daughters. She set up this ‘thing’ where every time our (then maybe four year old) grandson tried ten new foods she took him to the toy store. The fried calamari he tried with us, once verified :), counted. I think it’s a great idea. Just a thought.

Thanks for the encouraging thoughts! (And my five year old won’t eat pizza either.) Re sushi, as their appetites grow, sushi may become a very rare special treat. A lot of other good meals out may go the same way due to the family budget. For now it’s fun to share their pleasure watching the little boats at our current kid-friendly sushi spot.

Interesting…

My experience with what my kids eat is similar to what J_L describes above. Some days they are great and adventurous eaters and other times they complain no matter what. Good luck, it’s a constant and not very rewarding battle.

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I’ll third this experience. I’ve trained myself to stop caring.
But it can be a challenge when kiddo specifically asks for something, I act as short-order cook to make it special, and then the dish goes untouched. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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Tortellini en brodo.

The boy won’t eat soup, only what is in the soup. This is one of his favorite snacks. When I asked if he wanted cheese, he asked if he could pour the whole bag in. He was very hungry.

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I think I’m related to “the boy.” My soup is more what’s in the soup.

My son exactly.

I agree with this. We were in New Orleans when my daughter was 5 and she put away about 10 fried oysters then said “that was really good chicken.” A year or so later she tried an oyster on the half of shell an almost threw up so it put her off them for years. This past weekend, age 10, she tried an oyster on the half shell and liked it OK.

She used to love those dried seaweed packets in her lunch when she was younger, just put them away like potato chips, then I noticed after a couple years they started coming back uneaten and suddenly she doesn’t like them any more. Still doesn’t like red sauce in pasta, just butter and parmesan.

Sushi - she likes hand rolls with ikura, which doesn’t seem too bad at $5-$6 a roll, but without warning she’ll put down 4 of them.

I don’t push though - let them find their own way, just make options available. Personally I find the foodie kid thing a little obnoxious. Like parents who put their 3 years olds in Sonic Youth t-shirts.

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Jun Won, Romana, Fonda, any dim sum and Pailin are my kid’s favorite places. Ta’eem, Anaya, and any burger places are in second place. We’ve limited his burger consumption to like 1 every two months, mostly at home so it’s easy to avoid burger places.

Favorite part is that he loves shellfish and people in Italy, Spain and France were shocked to see a little kid destroying more oysters than the parents. Guess kids over there don’t get into them.

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we solved this problem by giving ours a wide straw… he finishes every soup now… including last night’s chicken meatball/veg soup

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straw… trust… broth is essential

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That is so brilliant! But your kids are younger, mine is already a teenager, so I’m pretty sure it won’t work. I used to always use a mug for brothy soup, thinking maybe he just didn’t like spooning up the liquid, but nope.

He doesn’t like hot chocolate either, though, so maybe it’s warm liquids he finds unappetizing.

When ours were little, we would use the same straw technique, too. They were lazy and didn’t want to spoon it out…the straw made broth drinking significantly easier. They actually enjoyed the broth more than the stuff in the soup when they were little. Things are much changed now that they are much older…except on days where they are lazy and get their own straws to drink the broth…this only happens at home. In public, they’ll use spoons.

I’m going to pass along the straw idea. Pretty darn clever. Thanks.

Great call. Kids will sometimes avoid foods because their motor skills make it too tough to actually enjoy. Boba straws FTW!

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Kid did it again yesterday. I tried to get him to use the spoon, nope. Straw every time.

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Yep, we bought reusable boba straws. Easy to clean as well. That’s exactly what it is. It’s frustrating to him to keep spilling with a spoon so he hates doing it.

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Truth. I remember, as a kid, sitting a Chinese seafood dinners and having guests ask my parents, “He [me] doesn’t like shrimp???” Parents [throwing me a dirty look and then throwing me a peeled shrimp]: “He likes them just fine; he doesn’t like to get his fingers dirty…”

Alas, I’ve never really learned how to peel a large shrimp very well…

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L. O. L.!

Off-topic but you might enjoy.

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