A concept restaurant with a focus on the refined tastes of children.

November 21, 2013 8:10 AM

Lil' Buco: fine dining for kids
posted by andoatnp (36 comments total)

I see absolutely no reason not to serve Sloppy Joe crostini and grilled cheese coins at my next party. They both sound delightful.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:15 AM on November 21, 2013 [6 favorites]

Yeah, the blob of ketchup with the line marked through it automatically raises the price by ten bucks.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:18 AM on November 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

There is nothing here I wouldn't eat.

Also I recently watched an episode of Bizarre Foods America (Andrew Zimmern only goes half out of his way to uncomfortably exoticize everything in this one) where he goes to Graham Elliot's restaurant in Chicago. The stuff served there was, in certain ways, very much like this.
posted by griphus at 8:19 AM on November 21, 2013

I lost it at the drink menu.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:23 AM on November 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

intermezzo: capri sun cube

I just edited this to change from initial caps to all lower case.
posted by amtho at 8:25 AM on November 21, 2013 [5 favorites]

Count me among the people who find this amusing but would also eat all of this, most of it quite happily. (The number of things and ways I've eaten leftover Sloppy Joe meat would either please or appall you, depending on your taste)

"Cookie unfinished" was probably my favorite.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:25 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's not real?

OK, something like this, but more for adults, could be a huge success.
posted by amtho at 8:26 AM on November 21, 2013

I completely bought that this was a real restaurant!

wait

okay, I guess that's two of us it fooled.
posted by griphus at 8:27 AM on November 21, 2013 [5 favorites]

I thought it was real mostly because the photography was so terrible.
posted by peep at 8:28 AM on November 21, 2013

Pop Tart sous vide did it for me.
posted by Madamina at 8:30 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nope, not real.
posted by Curious Artificer at 8:30 AM on November 21, 2013

Jinx. I owe you a pop-tart.
posted by Curious Artificer at 8:31 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

I checked by looking at a satellite image of the address. Pretty desolate.
posted by amtho at 8:33 AM on November 21, 2013

That's a pretty lazy takedown: the Streetview address they show is clearly 1400 Old Austin Road, Burnet, Texas, which is an hour away from any address on Burnet Road in Austin.

However, the reason for that is Burnet Road doesn't go near the 1400s in Austin, so yeah, it's a fake.
posted by Etrigan at 8:35 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sous-vide pop-tart is hilarious.

You could totally do this though likely in conjunction with a regular sit-down restaurant. Parents would love it.

I recently came across the bandit plate and totally love that. It just really says to me that the owners get it. I'd frequent and spend more at a place with that kind of acknowledgement.

There's another restaurant that I have been to, can't remember what, it was on a vacation that had a "pick 3" kids menu. Pick 3 items, $5. Items were things like: peas, carrots, apples, black beans, hummus, grilled chicken, broccoli, butter pasta, etc. It was so great.
posted by amanda at 8:36 AM on November 21, 2013 [7 favorites]

I'm sort of unclear on whether this is poking fun at "fine dining," the idea of children's menus, or both. I'm okay with any of those.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:36 AM on November 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

My little one would go nowhere near this stuff. These days it's raspberries and sweet potatoes or nothing.

sigh...
posted by Hoopo at 8:44 AM on November 21, 2013

"Summer vegtables (pre-dessert requirement)" warmed my cold black heart.
posted by pizzaslut at 8:45 AM on November 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

Charred marshmallow, chocolate, and graham cracker brochette
posted by Kabanos at 8:45 AM on November 21, 2013

They had me at "curbside parent pick-up/drop-off." "Here, kids, go eat fourteen dollar fruit loops while mommy and daddy go into a store and look at an object without being interrupted." SOLD.
posted by KathrynT at 9:06 AM on November 21, 2013 [7 favorites]

Did Martha Stewart do the photography for the menu?
posted by orme at 9:09 AM on November 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

That cereal picture is making me reconsider all of my Saturday morning choices.
posted by jetlagaddict at 9:17 AM on November 21, 2013

Damn it, I came here to eviscerate this stupid concept, the people of Austin dumb enough to support it and the fetishization of food in general.

Too bad, I was really looking forward to getting worked up. Well done I guess, you played me.
posted by Keith Talent at 9:19 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's funny because in America, we serve children garbage and call it food.

"The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2010. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to 18% over the same period." –CDC
posted by Nelson at 9:20 AM on November 21, 2013

I'm just blinking cause these places do exist on the UWS, it seems like we need a maintain a 1:1 ratio to twee child friendly restaurants and elderly beggars.
posted by The Whelk at 10:08 AM on November 21, 2013

"ball-pit seating" ftw
posted by gottabefunky at 10:25 AM on November 21, 2013

Officially lost it at the lunchables charcuterie, if only because when you order the grown-up version, somebody will invariably make the comparison.
posted by Spatch at 10:34 AM on November 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

I knew it was a fake for sure only when I read "with ball pit seating."

Anyone who's seen a sick kid turn a ball pit into a swimming-pool-size petri dish with one moist-sounding heave will know what I mean. *shudder*

And INRE: those grilled cheese coins, I just got the phone with my wife and we're having grilled cheese sammiches for dinner tonight.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:39 AM on November 21, 2013

Here is the place I was thinking of. It is one of ...five dessert/cupcake/child friendly places in like a ten block radius. So ...nothing about this strikes me as parody.
posted by The Whelk at 10:50 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

WRT grilled cheese coins, I got a top from somewhere once to make a very thin grilled cheese sandwich -- thinly sliced bread, not too much cheese -- let it cool enough to firm up the cheese, then cut it into little cubes and use it as croutons on tomato soup. I have done so. YOU MUST ALL DO THIS IMMEDIATELY.
posted by KathrynT at 10:54 AM on November 21, 2013 [8 favorites]

the reality of living in ny has ruined my sense of humor for these things.
posted by fuzzypantalones at 11:52 AM on November 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Grilled cheese sandwiches? No. In our house it's GORILLA cheese sandwiches.
posted by Daddy-O at 1:13 PM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

In our house it's GORILLA cheese sandwiches.

How do you get them to sit still so you can milk them?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 1:23 PM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Next - Childhood Menu.
posted by kickingtheground at 2:21 PM on November 21, 2013

I have this vague memory of one of my kids calling them girl cheese sandwiches. Or maybe it was girl-ed cheese, like girling is a cooking technique. Maybe I used to call them that. I think once you get to be my age the well of "cute kid things that happened" becomes a collective unconsciousness of spoonerisms, mallapropisms, naïveté, precociousness and adorable lisping that you are free to draw on regardless of your actual relationship or proximity to the darling sweetness as it was committed. Somewhere, somewhen, a child called it a girl cheese sandwich, of this I am sure.
posted by Biblio at 2:34 PM on November 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

Biblio, my daughter called it girl cheese! At some point my son, who is two years younger, wailed, "WHY WON'T YOU EVER MAKE ME BOY CHEESE!?!?"
posted by artychoke at 8:50 PM on November 21, 2013 [2 favorites]