Kid’s Restaurant Week

Earlier this week we had the pleasure of dining at a restaurant I’d been wanting to go to for ages – Zola, adjacent to the Spy Museum in Washington, DC. This is just one of several local eateries participating in Kids’ Restaurant Week, a week-long promotion at local high-end restaurants where adults pay $29 for three courses and kids 11 and under pay their age.

Sponsored by Cookie and Gourmet magazines, Kids’ Restaurant Week runs through through Father’s Day in DC, and in New York and Chicago from today, June 20th, to the 28th. A portion of proceeds benefit local charities in each city. You can visit www.kidsrestaurantweek.com to see what restaurants are participating and take a look at the menus. Some have special menus just for this week, and others let you choose from their regular dinner offerings.

An important thing to note is that even though it’s called “Kids’ Restaurant Week,” not all the food that is offered is kid-friendly. At Zola, Maya’s dinner consisted of lamb sliders as her first course, beef with Brussels sprouts as her main entree, and a glazed chocolate mouse with passion fruit sauce for dessert. It was so much food (for only $4!!) that of course mom and dad had to help her out! I’m not usually a fan of lamb, but those sliders were killer.

We were offered a highchair for the baby and coloring sheets and crayons, but they didn’t have kid’s cups, so you might want to throw a sippy in your diaper bag just in case. Or maybe you already do that and I’m just always unprepared!

You can’t just drop by the restaurant at any time… this promotion is only available for early dinner seating, between 5 and 7pm. As long as your dinner order is in the kitchen by 7, you’re good to go!

Last I checked, there are still tables available at a handful of restaurants in DC for this weekend. We’re going to visit another restaurant tomorrow, for Father’s Day, because this promotion is just too fun to pass up!

Maya brought along her V-Tech digital camera, hence the bad resolution: