A 3 Course Meal at a "5 Star Restaurant"

“Pardon me! Garcon? May I please have your finest turkey burger with ketchup dipping sauce?”

Make fun of me all you want, but playing “restaurant” at dinner time is a hugely popular game in my house these days. The kids absolutely love eating out, so bringing the experience home has been a powerful way to get them to eat things that might otherwise sit on the plate, ignored in favor of grub they know. I play the snobby waiter/chef who is silly, yet responsive; they play the consumers who…well…consume.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Put kids in chair.

Step 2: Wait patiently while “customers” insist on strapping themselves into booster seat—no self-respecting patron would ever let the waiter do this…

Step 3: Politely push customers in.

Step 4: Offer chef specials: “Tonight, for the appetizer course, I have either monkey brains with elephant toenail sauce or finely sliced cucumbers with hummus.” One day, they’ll pick the monkey sweetbreads and I’ll be screwed—but for now, it’s a pretty good giggle catalyst.

Step 5: Serve first course.

Step 5a: If you’re feeling particularly patient, ask the customers if they’re enjoying the first course. If you’ve demonstrated how to properly respond to this question in an actual restaurant, it can be pretty funny what they’ll say…

Step 6: Remove first course.

Step 7: “Can I interest you in a main course today, or are you simply grazing? If you’re interested, I have the chef’s specialty tonight—a turkey burger – barely seasoned at all – on extremely plain wheat toast with melted mozzarella cheese. That comes with a ketchup dipping sauce.” Um…yes. Yes, they’ll have that.

Further steps—see above until meal is done. Usually, there’s a dessert course for customers who have demonstrated a zeal for eating the finer things in life—that said, dessert is for customers only, so those who eschew the provisions are politely shown the door. I recommend the cinnamon toast with a side of clementine. It’s simply delightful.

I like offering things one at a time. It prevents my carnivore from ignoring the veggies, and my carbaholic from exclusively eating pasta. The “customers” don’t have to eat everything, but they must try each course to move on to the next one. Pretty fun and effective stuff.

That said—I’m really pissed. I have these repeat customers, and despite eating everything, they never leave a tip! Whoever raised them did a terrible job.