In this rough economy, I'm looking for comfort in both the food (no frou-frou today, thank you.) and good, repsectful, polite service. Once more, I will beat this dead horse, but DO NOT try to sit me where I don't want to sit and expect me to be grateful. Money's tight. I'm prepared to walk out.

Very sorry. I may have just posted the same remark 3 times. This laptop seems to be suicidal.

I like the idea of multiple serving size options. I love being able to order a half sandwich at a deli, so why not a half portion of pasta? of course, with meat and such it could create problems with supply.

Kids menus are boring! I went to dinner at Uno's with my niece when she was 8. She ordered a ceasar salad with her mini pizza from the kids menu. The waiter said "That's a lot of food..." I said "if she WANTS a salad, please please bring her the salad!" She ate all of the salad. two bites of the pizza. She had adventurous tastes. Her mother used to order escargot at 4. Of course, now that my niece is 18, she prefers fast food to salad, but hey, if they want a salad, bring them a salad!

I'm not buying my child a crabcake they'll only nibble at anyway (unless I want to eat them rest . . . mmm . . . food scavenging).

I have not been out of Maryland for months and months (probably at least a year). So, all my knowlege of national trends comes from tv shows. I see lots of flash-freezing liquid nitrogen tricks, lots of foaming, and gels and other things that are supposed to be providing one with the essence of flavors but more intense.

I love Ethnic flavors and Goldilocks plate sizing. I can't see upscaling kids menus because chicken fingers and mac and cheese are what kids usually want until they are old enough to order from the adult menu. I'd personally like to try more really foreign cuisines this year. Cambodian and Vietnamese come to mind. Some of the cuisines of the former Soviet Republic would be interesting to try too. And, as pointed out by several people recently we really don't have (many) that have true German or Austrian cuisine. Personally it wouldn't bother me at all to have an ecclectic chef who mixes all of them. (If done well, anyway).

Joyce W.-

You may want to look into Red Square (http://www.redsquaremd.com/index.php). My one experience there was fascinating and VERY filling.

I'm with Matt Hudock.

Kids have more sophisticated tastes? I hear parent after parent half-proudly whining that their precious will eat only chicken fingers.

Some kids, no doubt, eat proper food. Perhaps I inherited my parents' disdain for children's menus. In their view, children ate adult food at home, they should eat adult food out. Only spoiled brats ate off the children's menu.

What it all seems to be saying is "Choice." This makes sense in today's economy. Depending on how long ago the data for the List was compiled it may or may not be current. What we were looking for last summer might not be what we want today.

I love the Goldilocks serving sizes. And, for those children with adventurous tastes, small size servings could surplant a kids menu.

I think the key with kids is what they are exposed to. My niece was born into a foodie family. She was eating sushi at 3 and by her teens a local restaurant had renamed her favorite blueberry and goat cheese salad after her, because she ordered it so often.

I think Dahlink has it nailed. Kids will eat what they are exposed to. Sorry for ending that in a preposition JM.

Kids that aren't exposed to a wide variety of foods will eat what is familiar to them. I was the same way as a little kid, very picky about what I would eat. But then, we didn't go out to eat often and it was never at fine restaurants that offered exotic food (at least to a kid).

But as I grew up, my tastes expanded and I'll now eat stuff that I would never eat as a kid. A crab cake were one of the things I hated as a kid. About 5 years old, I once asked for a hamburger, got a crab cake, and thought it was the worst burger I had ever had.

Since then, crab cakes are one of my favorites.

Don't you think that if you teach children at very early ages that food outside the house is intended to satisfy all their infantile sensual urges that MAYBE they will grow up to eat like infantile moron adults? You are supposed to teach children not satisfy them. Said the father of none.

Sorry for ending that in a preposition JM.

I believe that if you ask Mr. McIntyre, he'll tell you that the "don't end in a preposition" thing is a shibboleth.

My sister and niece live in Austin, TX, and I'm pretty sure I've seen quesadillas on the children's menus there. I guess that supports the theory that children will eat what they're exposed to (no surprise to see Tex Mex on Austin menus), as well as "trends" #2 and 5 (ethnic flavors and expanded kids' menus). Ok - I know that a basic cheese quesadilla is just the cousin of a grilled cheese, but maybe that's the first small step to expanding the menus and getting picky tykes outside of TX to try different foods.

Beyond that, I'm child-free and have blissfully little experience with children's menus.

An awful lot of English grammar rules are actually crap. They come from some Brits with inferiority complexes deciding to make English look like a real language by trying to shoehorn it into Latin grammar.

One book that covers this, in a most readable and interesting way, is Anthony Burgess' _A Mouthful of Air_.

Yes, that Burgess.

I was raised not to say "I don't like [pick a food]" unless and until I had tasted it. If I didn't like it then, fine, but not trying it because it looked or smelled "funny" wasn't allowed.

My stepdaughter, on the other hand, eats take-out junk (subs, pizza, burgers & fries, etc.) most of the time; when she cooks at home it's hot dogs or something called "milk noodle soup" (eesh!). Having had no experience with real food, her daughter ate only hot dogs or chicken tenders til she was 10 or so. Thank God the granddaughter has expanded her food horizons; her mother has not, and, partly because of her poor eating habits most of her adult life, has developed numerous ailments.

I credit a lot of my appreciation of ethnic foods to the cafeteria at Harris Elementary School in Austin, Texas [30° 18'54.24" N x 97° 41' 27.40" W], where I went to first grade. I guess you would call it a children's menu! Enchiladas were a favorite on the 1961 school menu. Much more interesting than my mother's cooking!