Undercover mother

Mainstream restaurant reviews are great for choosing a date-night venue. Entrée descriptions glisten with luscious, buttery detail, and randy writers gleefully disclose prime snuggling locales. But when your dining partner is more interested in doodling than canoodling, priorities shift. Bring the kids along for the meal and you’ll likely be less concerned with molecular gastronomy than with, say, conniption leniency.

In a new recurring feature we’re calling “Undercover Mother,” Time Out Kids will investigate the elements of a fulfilling night out, family style. To launch the concept, we sent an anonymous crew of moms and dads on the town with their children—infants, preteens and in-betweens—and asked them to pay close attention to how the littlest diners were treated. Because, let’s face it, the provenance of those locally sourced quail eggs may be interesting, but what you really want to know is whether servers will quail at the sight of your four-year-old.

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