New Kids Menu at Giggling Squid - Thai Tapas

Last weekend we took the girls for a really fun Sunday lunch - something a bit different that they definitely both enjoyed. Thai Tapas at Giggling Squid in Wokingham. There are around 20 Giggling Squid restaurants and we are lucky enough to have one in our local town but until recently we hadn't really considered taking the girls there but then last month Giggling Squid launched a new kids menu, Little Tapas for Little People so we went to give it a whirl.

The ‘Little Tapas for Little People’ menu, just like the adults tapas menu, offers a choice of flavoursome thai favourites for you to try just a little of each.  For just £5.95, kids get to choose two dishes from a selection of Giggling Squid favourites, from milder curries and noodles to rice dishes and nibbles such as dumplings and spring rolls.

Lara and Holly both chose pork dumplings with a dipping sauce and spring rolls with chilli sauce but they also joined us in trying chicken satay with peanut sauce, Thai curries and a Massaman curry. The girls got to choose a bowl of rice each to accompany their meal.  I'd have liked to have seen a few more vegetables on offer for the kids menu - our own meals were packed with beans, carrots, courgettes and oriental veg but the children's menu didn't seem to feature much (admittedly, our girls chose options that didn't even include a veggie garnish!).

For an extra £2 you can choose a pudding - our girls both chose ice cream which came beautifully presented but you can also choose a roti flatbread with sugar and condensed milk.  The grown-ups dessert menu features some amazing Thai inspired dessert ideas such as Thai basil and lemongrass sorbet.

The girls enjoyed the meal from start to finish. They devoured an entire bowl of Thai prawn crackers while colouring in their menus (there's a chance to win a family meal if you do) and playing the "match the picture" game on their menu.

Lara and Holly are both very adventurous when it comes to food, particularly oriental flavours and I think their first experience of a Thai restaurant went down really well. I can definitely see us coming back to Giggling Squid during the day time with them to enjoy lunch more frequently. The atmosphere was really relaxed and we felt we could have ordered any combination of dishes from the menu and enjoyed them all.

Disclosure: Our meal was provided for the purposes of this review but we absolutely LOVED it and the girls have already asked for us to go back and we definitely will.

Lara does... Ocado Taste Testing

I may have come to the Ocado party a little late but this weekend we had our first Ocado grocery delivery and Lara was tasked with taste-testing a number of Ocado's products to help assess their family-friendliness as part of their taste-testing panel.

Recent research from Ocado suggests that UK parents spend up to £2000 a year buying kid-friendly meal options but Ocado believe that parents shouldn't need to buy different foods for adults and children and that, with a bit of constructive input from taste-testers like Lara, it is possible for them to stock great food options that are loved by kids and adults alike.  This is music to my ears - part of my Mellow Mummy mantra is that mealtimes should be fun, not stressful and, ever since the very first day that I started weaning Lara (almost exactly 5 years ago) I've tried to ensure that, wherever possible, my girls have eaten exactly the same meals as us.

Lara tried out a range of different Ocado products, the same set that were recently tested by other members of the Ocado kids taste testing panel.  She had great fun rating each food for look, smell, texture and taste.  It was a real challenge for her to isolate her senses and really think hard about the adjectives she could use to describe how the food made her feel.  Here are her highlights:-

thinking of the correct word to use to describe taste!

Garofalo Kids’ Organic Anistelle Pasta 

These cute star and moon shaped paste pieces are just as groovy for grown ups as for adults.  Lara enjoyed the firm, traditional italian pasta texture and taste and, after she had finishes, I cooked myself up a bowl of them - fab!  Lara rated the Garofalo pasta as "awesome" across the board.



Tideford Organic Tomato and Basil Sauce

I never expected Lara to enjoy a basil sauce because she has never enjoyed my own attempts to introduce fresh basil into homemade foods.  But Lara thought that this tomato sauce was a great accompaniment to pasta and found it to be a light and smooth sauce that tasted great.

Ocado Fresh Mashed Potato

Lara loves mash and this was smoother and thicker (and less lumpy) than anything I would normally make at home.  Lara enjoyed the mash most as a vehicle for meat!

sausage and mash testing!

Laverstoke Park Buffalo Meatballs

Surprisingly, Lara rated these cute little buffalo meatballs far higher than a pork alternative.  The buffalo meat tasted really strong and "meaty" and I think Lara enjoyed the texture and the small bite size of the meatballs which were perfectly seasoned.  We'll definitely be trying buffalo again together as a family.

Good Little Company Good Little Sausages

Lara raved most about these tasty little gluten-free pork sausages.  We all tried some of these for dinner afterwards and I think Mummy, Daddy and Holly all agreed that they were very yummy and good-looking sausages (if a little salty).

All of the products above are available for home delivery from Ocado.

The Handmade Burger Company - New Family Friendly Menu

Last night, Handmade Burger Co. invited the full Mellow family down to their newer restaurants on the riverside at The Oracle in Reading to see how family friendly their new menu is.

Mr. B. and I love a good burger - I guess we consider ourselves to be burger snobs! - and Handmade Burger, having only been at the Oracle a short while, had already come recommended to us.  On arrival we were all taken in by the atmosphere; it had a sense of gastropub about it; all wooden furniture and blackboards.

The girls were happy to be offered colouring and balloons (I REALLY appreciated being asked by the staff before entertainment like this was offered - more places should think about asking before plonking crayons in front of a toddler!).

The menu was just up our street.  I can't think of a single thing on the menu that we wouldn't have tried; the same went for the junior burger menu.  New on the menu this season are two different sets of sliders - three different mini burgers served in soft, sweet brioche buns.  I went for the beef sliders and thought they were all fab; my favourite was the Beef Cheese Classic which was topped with a decadent sweet relish that left me wanting more.

The girls each chose a junior burger as part of a children's meal which included a burger, a side dish and a soft drink for less than £6.  Both of my girls were happy that the range of side dishes on offer included salad vegetables and corn on the cob (they did steal some of our chips too!).  Oh, and the chips.... the chips.  Proper chip-shop style chips served in huge bowls you just want to dive into.

Mr. B. tried out one of the brand new burgers on the menu - the peppered beef burger.  And very peppery it was too.  The Handmade Burger company make all of their burgers, rolls and sides fresh so they know exactly what goes into each dish.  The burgers aren't just limited to beef - with a choice of lamb or chicken too I was really impressed by the range of different tastes they catered for and the vegetarian options didn't feel like an afterthought, in fact, a chickpea and quinoa burger sounded very tempting!

I would agree with the friend who first recommended the Handmade Burger Co. to me that the burgers are the best I've tasted outside the US.  I think there may be a little work needed on the bread product - all of our burgers had soggy bottoms but they didn't hang around long enough for this to really be an issue as we wolfed them down!

The staff at Handmade in Reading were all really friendly without being patronising; it is nice to be asked more than once during your meal if everything is OK, it shows that it isn't just a tick in a box on a documented process.  I also appreciated the honesty of the staff at the counter who recommended money saving options to me when I placed my order.

We finished our meal off with a couple of ice cream sundaes.  The dessert menu was small and unfussy and do you know what?  they were blimming awesome!  We loved the simplicity of the menu and the honesty and passion behind the reason for the food that they serve - great ingredients don't need a lot of tarting up, do they?

The Handmade Burger Co. had a feeling very much like Nandos (not sure if they will love me or hat me for this).  They concentrate on one thing - burgers - and do it really well.  The style of ordering at the counter and the general approach to service felt similar, as did the small dessert menu.  Well, Nandos seems to have pretty much taken over the world, so why can't this homegrown burger chain do the same too?

We all enjoyed our meal at Handmade and will definitely be going back during weekend shopping trips to Reading.