Picture of the Week: Toothpick Tapas In Barcelona

Taverna Basca Irati (pictured) is one of several upscale tapas bars in Barcelona that displays its tapas on a big self-service bar. Each dish is skewered with a dainty toothpick. You help yourself to whatever looks good, and at the end of the meal your toothpicks are counted and your bill is totaled.

Not only is the food great, but we think this is a great way to dine with kids. Even picky eaters can choose exactly what they want and there's no waiting for a server or trying to decipher a menu to find kid-friendly options.

4 comments | Posted on May 14, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

Favorite Online Restaurant Guides (US and International)

Our focus this week is on eating out with your kids when you're traveling. First we dispelled the myth that you must eat in uninteresting international chains when you travel with kids, then I shared my top tips for choosing a family friendly restaurant with fantastic food.

One recommendation was to start with a list of great restaurants and then narrow it down to the family friendly choices. In this article, I will share my favorite Internet resources for finding great restaurants around the world (regardless of whether you are with your kids).

• New York Times has great recommendations, many of them up-to-the minute.
• Concierge.com is CondeNast Traveler's website. I'm a fan of the annual HotList guide to the best new restaurants around the world and the "Insider's Guides" available for most major tourist destinations.
• Fodors restaurant reviews are clear, accurate, and up to date above the other guidebooks we've tried. In larger cities, Fodors often lists one or two child friendly restaurants. Look for the "Gold Star" recommendations (which can be in any price range).
• Epicurious.com, Bon Appetit's website, has a limited selection of restaurant guides for major cities, but they do a great job of selecting the very best in each city. We've had especially good luck with their budget restaurants, which tend to focus on excellent food in a casual atmosphere... perfect for kids
• Bugaboo's Daytrips are beautiful, artist designed maps of cities around the world, complete with Bugaboo's recommendations for the best activities and food for families. Their recommendations tend to focus on offbeat local favorites more than fantastic food, but the choices are reliably good and family friendly.

Online Forums and Communities
EGullet and Chowhound can be great places to get restaurant recommendations or to ask opinions about place you've already selected. Don't expect that the members will automatically know what makes a restaurant kid friendly though... instead focus your questions on finding the best possible food.

What's Next?In my next article, I'll share some of my favorite Guidebooks for finding fantastic food abroad. Later in the week I'll also be writing about breast-feeding, pumping, and bottle feeding when you travel.

What are your favorite resources for finding restaurants when you travel? Please share them in the comments.

0 comments | Posted on May 12, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

Weekly Link Roundup: Travel Food, Saving Money and Instilling Goodwill

I've been writing a lot about food this week, and here's a few more articles: Hillel Cooperman, over at TastingMenu writes about Supermac New York City. Supermac specializes in Macaroni and Cheese (though they also serve salads and some sides) and Hillel says they do it well. You can dine in at the casual midtown restaurant or they'll deliver right to your hotel or vacation rental. If that's not kid friendly dining on a budget, I don't know what is! I also loved this campfire recipe over at WeeLife for Muffins made inside an orange peel. What fun!

Worried about breaking the budget by taking a vacation? Linsey over at WiseBread writes about how taking a vacation can actually SAVE you money in Wanna Put Away Some Cash? Take A Vacation. She's right, if you vacation on a budget, and track your expenses, it can cost less to be out of town. On our (pre-kid) 6-month around-the-world trip we spent more money maintaining our lifestyle in Seattle (mortgage, insurance, utilities, etc) even though we weren't here than we did on our airfare and day-to-day travel expenses.

Over at Traveling Mamas, there's an interview with Kayt Sukel who has traveled with her toddler to nearly 20 countries I love her minimalist approach to travel gear and keeping her son Chet entertained.

It's always good to instill goodwill in the your fellow air passengers before the plane leaves the ground. I love this picture over at DaddyTypes of the goodie bags one family (and their infant son) gave their row-mates on a long haul flight from San Francisco to Sydney What a great way to set a good tone for the rest of the flight.

Thinking about a road trip this summer? Check out Gearing Up For a Family Road Trip over at Orbitz. The article has some good ideas about how to organize your trip, what to bring, and how to keep the kids entertained. Our kids are starting to get old enough that we'll probably do some real road trips this summer. I'm a little bit enthusiastic and a little bit nervous.

0 comments | Posted on May 10, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

Are You Going to BlogHer '08 in San Francisco?

I just made my reservations to attend BlogHer '08 in San Francisco. This is the first trip I'll take without the kids since E was 9 months old (and the first time my husband will have both kids for an entire weekend).

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone there, and I'd love a chance to get to know you or catch up on your blog before we meet in person, so if you're going to BlogHer, please leave me a note in the comments.

2 comments | Posted on May 9, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

How To Find a Kid-Friendly Restaurant YOU Will Enjoy

An important part of our travel experience is dining in local restaurants and enjoying local food. The fact that we travel with our kids doesn't mean that we want to give that up and eat in uninteresting, poor-quality kid focused restaurants. Instead, we do some advance work to ensure that we have food experiences we can all enjoy. Here are my top tips for finding your own "kid friendly" restaurants when you travel.

Plan Ahead
We choose a couple of restaurants in (or near) tourist areas before we leave home and note them in our guidebook. While we leave our day-to-day schedule pretty open ended, it's nice to be able to navigate quickly to a good restaurant rather than searching desperately after everyone is already tired and irritable.

The Itiniaries in our Family Friendly Travel Guides feature printable maps with tourist attractions and excellent family friendly restaurants all ready for your adventures. Want an example? Check out this itinerary for A Half Day in Historic Rome With Kids

Start With the Great References
The first step to finding a great place to eat is to start with a guidebook or online reference that recommends great restaurants. It sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised at how many people start with a list that is geared towards kids and are disappointed that all the offerings are burger places, pizza places and chain restaurants. It's a little more work to start with a guide that's geared towards adults and then narrow it down to a kid friendly restaurant, but you will be rewarded with a better meal, and that's what counts. Of course all the recommendations on DeliciousBaby are for restaurants that serve excellent food and work well for families with kids. Check back for a list of my favorite resources (besides DeliciousBaby) for finding great food in a few days.

Look for Codewords That Mean "Kid Friendly"
Now that you're reading some great restaurant reviews, look for keywords that indicate the restaurant is kid friendly. Here are some tip offs: casual, outdoor seating (especially in countries where smoking is allowed), noisy, bustling, comfort food, local favorite, working person's, takeaway. Some guidebooks (Fodors for example) will note a few restaurants that are great for both adults and kids.

Cross Reference Your Top Choices
Once you've selected a few great sounding restaurants, search for them online and see where else they turn up (and what other reviewers have to say). You'll weed out restaurants that sweet talked themselves into a single guidebook or that have lost their touch.

Ask Around
Ask family, friends, your Twitter followers and anyone you know who has visited the destination recently. You'll be surprised to learn what detailed records some people keep of their favorite meals. Before we went to Spain, I sent email to a few expats living and blogging in Spain with their kids. Locals always seem to know about the coffee shop with a toy box in the corner or the cafe with a little patch of grass. They're also great references for finding playgrounds.

Check The Schedule
Dining hours vary from country to country (for example in Barcelona dinner is usually served at around 9pm, and many restaurants are closed until 7 or 8. Nobody will have a pleasant meal if your child is exhausted and famished before the meal begins, so make sure that your dream restaurant is open when you expect to be hungry.

Look for Ethnic Restaurants When we're traveling abroad, we're usually focused on enjoying the local cuisine, but when we're in the US and Canada, we think it's fun to seek out restaurants run by the local immigrant population. They tend to be set up for whole families to enjoy dining together. For example, I at my most mouthwatering fried chicken ever at Phnom Penh in Vancouver, BC. There's simply nothing like it in Seattle (our home town). Ethnic restaurants can be a great break too when you've gotten tired of the local food. In Paris, L'as du Fallafel serves the best Fallafel that even an Israeli would adore in a bustling, kid friendly restaurant.

Be Creative about Tailoring The Menu for Your Kids
If you are traveling to a country where you'll expect your kids to eat a lot of new foods, prepare a few typical items before you leave home and get your kids familiar with them. Once you arrive, you can usually build a kid-friendly meal out of just about any restaurant menu if you know what to look for. For example, our kids ate lots of Paella in Spain and Cassoulet in France.

Not sure what to expect? The DK Eyewitness Travel Guides and Lonely Planet's World Food Guides are both great resources with lots of pictures, and they'll help you learn what you'll see on local menus before you go.

Don't Eat In a Restaurant
Don't expect that your kids will be able to eat every meal at a restaurant. We typically eat breakfast in our hotel or rental apartment and often eat lunch at a park. Luckily, local markets are one of the best places to get a sense of what people eat in their homes. They're also a fun way for kids to explore the local food and pick out things they'll be willing to try (they might surprise you).

Visit the local market and pick up food for a picnic or takeaway items to cook in your vacation rental apartment. Paris, in particular, has a long healthy tradition of "traiteur" or "takeaway" shops selling upscale food that you can heat and serve at home.

Make Sure it Passes The Crowd Test
My dad's time honored rule for finding a great meal when we're out exploring is to look for the place with a huge crowd. He's right. Locals know what's good, and they're willing to wait in line for it. Even if you are eating outside of the busiest hours, there is often one restaurant or cafe that has more guests than the others.

What are your favorite tips for finding a family friendly restaurant when you travel? Tell us in comments.

1 comment | Posted on May 8, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

Welcome Chicago Sun-Times Readers

Our picture and short story on baby food in Spain was picked up by the Chicago Sun times today! Check it out Picture of the Week: Baby Food in Spain

If you are new to DeliciousBaby, you might want to check out some of our other useful links and resources

• Does Travel With Kids = The McDonalds World Tour
  
• Family Friendly City Guides
• Keeping a Child Busy on a Plane
• Air Travel with Babies and Kids
• Helping your Child Sleep on a Plane

0 comments | Posted on May 7, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

Picture of the Week: Baby Food in Spain

I'm strangely obsessed with checking out the baby food selection in every country we visit. Something about the choices we make for those first meals reveals a lot about the culture. In France, we saw chocolate flavored rice cereal and formula. In Italy, the mad cow scare meant that there were lots of "alternative" meats (rabbit anyone?). In this picture we're checking out the HUGE selection of babyfood at the Cortes Ingles in Barcelona... a testament to the idea that no matter where you go they have babies and someone sells all the things babies need.

2 comments | Posted on May 7, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

CARES Airplane Restraint Giveaway Winner

I want to thank everyone who entered to win a CARES Airplane Seat Harness from Kids Fly Safe. I loved getting all your thoughtful feedback about what you'd like to see on the site. I will post a summary later this week. The winner was Erin Zackey who said:

I'm excited to now subscribe to your blog! I would love to see tips on money saving while traveling with kids.

Erin, here are a few old posts to start you out & I promise that we'll have more great money saving tips this coming up!

Many thanks to Kids Fly Safe for generously sponsoring this giveaway.

0 comments | Posted on May 6, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

April Top Articles

The number of visitors to DeliciousBaby each day continues to grow, and April was no exception. Our giveaways, and our generous sponsors, brought a lot of new people to the site. So did our readers. Thank you to everyone who sent me email telling me that they were forwarding the site on to friends with kids!

1. Flying With Babies Toddlers and Kids
   
2. Our Favorite Travel Toys
   
3. Flying With Carseat: Who Needs a Carseat Onboard
4. Ten Tips for Keeping A Toddler Busy on a Plane Flight
   
5. Advantage Rent-A-Car's Dangerous Car Seats
6. Packing Lists for Travel With Kids
7. Ten Great Travel Toys You Already Have At Home
8. Breeze Through Airport Security With Kids
9. Flying With Carseat: Tips for Getting Through The Airport with a Carseat
10. Jetlag and Babies, Toddlers and Kids

I also want to take a minute to thank some of the great sites that sent new readers our way. If you have not read these sites before, now would be a great time to check them out!

ParentHacks features clever tips and ideas from real parents like these recent post: Colorful Milk Rewards For Toddlers

Away.com's Are We There Yet features family travel stories and guides. They were also kind enough to feature our article on An Insiders Guide to Seattle With Kids

0 comments | Posted on May 6, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

Does Travel With Kids = The McDonalds World Tour?

I experience travel destinations largely through my stomach. My husband says that it took time to get used to traveling with me because I'm always up for a snack. Regardless of the time of day, if we pass by interesting street food or a bakery or a market, I always stop for a bite, especially if I see something i've never had.

Before we had kids, we dined at some of the world's great restaurants. Places like Arpege in Paris, San Dominico in the Italian countryside, and Daniel in New York. So you'd think that traveling with the kids would really put a crimp in my style & bum me out.

Not for a second. While we're not above eating a lengthy meal at Robuchon while E sleeps in his stroller, or having dinner with a baby carrier hidden safely under the table (don't worry, we pick up the baby if he or she wakes up, but our kids were both reliable sleepers), high-end dining never really defined my eating experience when we traveled. I enjoyed it, and I miss it now, but to a large extent, restaurants that operate on the world dining scene don't really reflect the local culture, the local ingredients, or have a deep connection with place.

The fact is that constraints are good. Constraints force you to focus. My fear of being dragged into the equivalent of Denny's or McDonald's everywhere we go forces me to seek out and try small local places. Places like Pinotxo, a bustling bar in the Boqueria Market in Barcelona. Putting our order in at the crowded bar took some work, but we ate some of best and freshest ceviche I've ever had. Pinotxo's chickpeas made me want seconds (and I normally think that chickpeas are vile slimy little beans whose only service to humanity is to be ground beyond recognition and mixed with garlic, olive oil and sesame).

Needing to serve quick and easy meals to our 1-yr old in our Rome apartment pushed us into a butcher shop in the Campo Dei Fiori that sold us deceptively simple looking pre-made meatballs. To this day, I'm trying to recreate those meatballs at home.

Even better, my quest to find accommodations with a kitchen has meant I can buy and experiment with interesting ingredients from the market instead of dreaming about it. In Paris, with a 6-month old, I made daily trips to the local market and the food hall of the nearby Bon Marche. I also came home with delicious local berries, fabulous juices, fresh bread, apple tarts, and anything else that caught my eye. What foodie wouldn't want a vacation like that?

So, no, traveling with our kids hasn't meant a McDonalds World Tour, though there was that moment of desperation in Sevilla when, for the first time ever, we put a Happy Meal in front of our 2½-year old son. He was offended by the sub-par chicken nuggets and just ate the fries. We haven't been tempted since.

I'll be writing more this week about how I find great places to eat with kids when we travel.

7 comments | Posted on May 5, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us