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Amy Myers joins our staff today as the resident Phillyist mother. But she's more than just a mommy: she's a working playwright with a nose for Philly's best bargains (she found Phillyist because of our daily Frugal Fun Alerts) who writes poetry when she feels the need to apologize. Sounds like our kind of girl!
So after one too many meals on the couch, my husband and I searched our souls and decided it was time. Anxious and unsure, we took each other by the hand, laced up our “fancy” sneaks, and took the plunge.
We were going out for the first time in almost six months. And not only that; we were going to bring the baby.
Honestly, I thought this was an incredibly bad idea. She is only three months old and I was sure she was going to fuss or cry or decide that she needed to eat NOW! But my husband, desperate starving saint that he is, assured me that it was the right thing to do. We had to take the baby out of the house sometime and wasn’t I always complaining he didn’t make dinner? Well, he was offering to take care of dinner. I best take him up on his kind offer.
It was my hatred of doing dishes that finally pushed me over the edge. If we didn’t eat in the house, we wouldn’t have any dirty dishes. This pleased me. I dressed our daughter in one of her “special” outfits. You know the ones I mean: the uncomfortable ones with the scratchy tags and matching bloomers that are crazy annoying to take off but you put the baby in them anyway because they just look so cute. I managed to pull together a clean, fairly normal looking outfit for myself, we strapped everyone into the car and away we went.
We were headed to Society Hill, my husband informed me, to a restaurant called Pad Thai. I immediately asked him to turn the car around. There was no way a Thai restaurant in Society Hill was going to embrace a baby into their ranks. Someone was going to spit in my food. I just knew it.
When we first pulled up to Pad Thai, I was intimidated. The restaurant is beautiful with a large open dining room, low lights, and sparse, tasteful décor. We walked past couples leaning over their small tables, speaking intimately. The people we’d agreed to meet had already been seated, and when I took my place at the end of the table, adjusting my daughter against my chest, I saw a waiter rushing over. I seriously thought he was going to ask me to leave. And I couldn’t blame him. Pad Thai does not give off the family-friendly, hey-look-at-all-this-crazy-crap-on-the-wall, we’ll-sing-a-goofy-rendition-of-the-birthday-song-if-you-ask kind of vibe.
But that’s when I heard it. A child’s voice. A child’s voice ordering drunken noodles. I twisted in my seat and saw a little boy, about four, sitting with his parents.
The waiter, it turned out, was coming over to get my drink order. It felt incredible to sit in a real restaurant and order real food without feeling awkward or unwanted. The fears I had of being scoffed by other patrons or by the wait staff were completely unfounded. The food was good, not fantastic, but good with the spring rolls (incredibly crispy and delicate) and tofu curry being the real standouts. The drunken noodles were fine. While the menu is very comprehensive, much of the flavoring has been “Americanized” or rather, they’ve toned down the heat to better suit a wider range of palates. You can, I am told, order any of the dishes “spicy.” We, however, declined, as I’m breastfeeding and our daughter prefers her milk without a ton of cayenne.
When talking about the dining experience at Pad Thai, I would be doing this fine restaurant a disservice if I neglected to mention the extensive drink list. The cocktails are excellent, and many are highly addictive, so my suggestion is to walk or take a cab. A friend we were with had so many mango martinis he doesn’t remember huge chunks of the night—particularly when he tried to convince us that organ donation should be mandatory.
What I like best about Pad Thai is that they were incredibly family friendly without forgoing the finer details that make dining out enjoyable. They provide highchairs or booth seating to families with children. The waitstaff not only bent over backwards to accommodate me and our child (they made sure to seat us far away from any open flames, extinguished and removed the votive from my side of the table, and asked several times if there was anything I needed), but I saw them do the same for all the families who had brought a minor.
When I first found out I was expecting, I resigned myself to the fact that if I wanted to eat anywhere with ambiance or a halfway decent wine list, we’d have to get a sitter. I assumed that because we had a baby, there would be a great deal of take out and very little dining in. But with great restaurants like Pad Thai expanding their welcome mats to fit us with a little one in tow, I’m excited that my mouth can rejoin the land of the tasting.
Image Credit: Flickr user foosco
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Eating out with a 3-month old is cake compared to eating out with an active toddler. Anything that requires a longer period of sitting than McDonalds (IHOP included) ends up requiring several trips to the parking lot for exercise. I'm interested to see what this article would look like if you were bringing a young toddler instead. Pad thai all over the floor, along with several utensils...helpful waitors providing colorful paper drink decorations for entertainment (only they stain when they get wet)...banging on the table with hands/forks/food/head...loud shrieks and dirty looks...oh the joys of parenting!
Well all I can promise is that I will revisit Pad Thai in a year or so...if it goes as badly as you predict I will owe you one cookie. I will then write a review entitled "How to Eat Well...Even When You Have a Toddler" where I curl up in a ball on my couch crying and bemoaning my gastronomical isolation.
Oooh. I think you should do an annual update on Pad Thai, with baby ages now-6 years!