Tag Archives: French

We love eating out as a family, it’s something we do most weekends and if Baby Gourmand is lucky he gets taken out for lunch during the week too.  What usually puts me off about most places when we go to eat out is the amount of places that don’t cater for children.  I’ve lived in both a big city and a medium sized town and both have a huge number of restaurants who don’t have high chairs, small cups, smaller cutlery or a children’s menu.

We recently visited Café Rouge to sample their new children’s menu, we have visited before when Baby Gourmand was much younger and it’s the perfect place for a family to visit for lunch or dinner.  Our local Café Rouge is very spacious so people with a pram wouldn’t have a problem getting a table, there are high chairs available, staff are incredibly child friendly and best of all they have a great children’s menu.

For £6.95 children can have a starter, main course, dessert and a drink, there were quite a few main courses that Baby Gourmand would have loved so I found choosing a dish for him almost as difficult as deciding what to have myself!

Baby Gourmand’s starter was artisan bread with d’Isigny butter, cucumber, carrot and tomato with a tomato dip which he proceeded to get all over his fingers ready to lick off.

Instead of ordering a started each, Mr Gourmand and I thought we would just order some bread and olives so we ordered the Rouge Olives (£3.25) and the Plateau de Pain (£4.95) The Rouge olives were delicious and the caper berries added a sweetness which cut through the heat of the Roquito chillies perfectly, for such a small little chilli they really can pack a punch.  The bread was all warm and I particularly liked the rye & caraway bread.  Baby Gourmand was convinced that the black olive tapenade was chocolate and didn’t look too impressed when I popped some into his mouth, I thought it was delicious and could have happily ate it with a spoon – I’m such a glutton.

I was torn between ordering the Poulet Ooh La La and the Petite Croque for Baby Gourmand and went for the latter.  I had ordered the cheese and ham one but the ham seemed to have taken a holiday from the toastie as it was missing, this didn’t seem to bother Baby Gourmand though as he thought it was rather tasty.

Mr Gourmand is a little predictable so I knew even before he did that he would be ordering the Rouge Burger (£10.95) I’ve just actually realised whilst writing this that the greedy man didn’t even offer me a bite so I’ll just have to take his word that it was delicious, it didn’t stay on his plate for very long so I assume it was just as good as he said it was.

I was torn between a couple of dishes, I thought since we were in a French restaurant I should really go for a typically French dish and something that I’ve never had whilst on holiday in France, The Moules (£11.95). I wasn’t expecting to receive such a huge pan of mussels, I wasn’t complaining though as I ploughed my way through the mussels which were steamed in a cream, garlic & wine broth, my favourite part of the meal was dipping my French fries or frites into the salty broth. Yum.

Surprisingly both myself and Mr Gourmand were too full for dessert but Baby Gourmand still had room so we ordered him Vanilla Ice-Cream which came with a choice of toppings.

The above food plus a diet coke, glass of milk and large bottle of water came to £39 I was incredibly impressed with the choice of food especially the food on the children’s menu.

The restaurant was full during our visit, we were there for 1 hour and 45 minutes which is an awfully long time to sit with a toddler, our main course took around 50 minutes for our main course to arrive from the point of ordering this had nothing at all to do with the waiting staff who were great it’s just something to think about if you’re visiting with small children.

* I am a member of the Mumsnet Bloggers Network Research Panel, a group of parent bloggers who have volunteered to review products, services, events and brands for Mumsnet.  I have not paid for the product or to attend an event.  I have editorial control and retain full editorial integrity.