Taking the Kids: Eating Healthier on the Road

Maybe restaurateurs feel compelled to offer a traditional kids' menu. "People expect it," Werner says. But why not also offer smaller portions for smaller prices? Werner said it doesn't cost him any more to do so. At Select Hyatt Hotels, kids may order half-portions for half price, but it isn't a brand-wide initiative, a spokesman said, nor is it widely publicized.

Cafe Spiaggia (http://www.spiaggiarestaurant.com/cafe.html) in Chicago offers kids potato gnocchi with fresh tomato sauce while kids eating at Beano's Cabin at Beaver Creek (www.beavercreek.com) in Colorado are treated to pan-seared salmon, among other choices. The ART Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel Seattle (www.fourseasons.com) offers mini pita pockets with grilled chicken and hummus and a veggie burger on its kids menu, which comes with a special activity book created by a local author all about a lost pup searching the city for his owner.

At the iconic Breakers Palm Beach Resort (www.thebreakers.com), the kids' menus at the resort restaurants offer seared mahi mahi sticks with sweet potato fries, pineapple glazed fish with steamed organic broccoli brown rice and baked chicken parmigiana. Why are these the exception rather than the rule -- and more typically at upscale hotels and eateries?

And if you think your kids won't touch such stuff, give it a try. Travel is about new experiences, expanding horizons -- and what better way to do that than through food. "Absolutely we want to encourage families to let kids try something else," Werner adds. "Our goal is to cook food people will love -- even if it is something they've never had before."

Just last weekend, I urged a couple of 12-year-old boys visiting us from New York's inner-city neighborhoods, courtesy of the Fresh Air Fund (www.freshair.org), to sample New England Clam Chowder, crab cakes and even fresh oysters at Latitude 41, a restaurant at Mystic Seaport (www.mysticseaport.org). We were in New England, after all.

The chowder (you'll even find it on kids' menus at the Omni Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire, www.omnihotels.com) and the crab cakes were a hit; the oysters not so much. But we congratulated the boys for their willingness to try something new, and kudos to the restaurant for letting them sample small portions.

I wish more restaurants and hotels would give kids that opportunity without forcing parents to pay full freight. (That's why cruises can be such a good bet for families who want to expand their kids' culinary repertoire.)

Werner, meanwhile, knows what he's doing is not only good for families but good business. "Parents are happier and the kids are happier," he says. "And, hopefully, that makes for return customers."

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