Kids Cuisine

Almost every kid I know is a big visual eater. If the food looks good, they’ll give it a try. However, if the color is weird or the texture is unfamiliar, it can be very hard to get the food anywhere near the mouth.

This problem is especially complicated in restaurants. When kids order, they don’t always know what they will be getting, and I have witnessed quite a few unpleasant surprises when the food was brought out (I can think of one particular horror when a whole fish was served, complete with eyes!) Most restaurants don’t offer pictures along with their menus.

This weekend, we ate at Sushi-Go-Round, a sushi restaurant in downtown D.C. The food there is your typical sushi fare, with a few other items on the menu. What really makes the restaurant unique, though, is the conveyor-belt sushi bar. Instead of placing an order, you sit at the sushi bar and wait for the food to come to you. The chefs put individual portions of each dish on a conveyor belt that slowly moves past you. Each person simply plucks rolls that look good to them off the moving track and digs in. Plates are color coded to indicate price (at this restaurant, between $2-5).

I’ve eaten at a few restaurants of this style, and I can think of several great advantages to them:

1. You can see what you are getting. If you’ve spent any time with a picky eater, you know how important good-looking food can be. This is especially true if the food is somewhat unfamiliar.
2. You can pace yourself. We often leave sushi restaurants feeling stuffed and somewhat poor. It can be hard to guess at how much food each combination really offers. When small portions come rolling around, you can take only what you really want and stop as you start getting full.
3. It’s fun! Kids love this kind of gimmicky restaurant. You’re even luckier if the sushi restaurant near you offers other food transportation options: I’ve been to places where dishes come around on floating boats or even model trains!
4. Portions are kid-sized. Each of Sushi-Go-Round’s plates had 1-2 pieces of sushi or 3-4 pieces of roll, just right for a smaller appetite.

Look around, there may be a great place like this in your neighborhood!