Full Moon Restaurant: Beyond Baby Friendly!

Everyone knows how tough it is to take a toddler out ... you spend your entire meal trying to placate them with books, toys, etc. and worry about people giving you nasty looks because of the noise. I usually prefer to go to chain restaurants because they are generally more baby-friendly, AND they tend to have changing tables in the bathrooms. I have, however, found a few places that are truly baby-friendly, and Full Moon Restaurant in Cambridge, MA is definitely one of them.

Full Moon
344 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138-6827
(617) 354-6699
www.fullmoonrestaurant.com

Located west of Radcliffe Quad/Harvard, Full Moon has a cozy, cafe atmosphere. Their lunch and dinner menus look great, with a variety of sandwiches, pasta, and fancy dishes like lamb shanks and grilled sirloin. There's certainly enough choices for a vegetarian like me. I went there for brunch and the menu is really good! I went for the poached eggs on grilled bread with asparagus and roasted pepper puree and it was delicious. They have a great kids menu and lots of small items like cups of cut up fruit, etc. too.

They also have a designated PLAY SPACE!!!! This area, tucked in the back corner, has a train table and buckets of toys and books! Definitely a plus for when you just can't get the kids to sit in their high chairs anymore.

The best thing was really the environment. There was nothing but a loud chorus of various babies crying and toddlers/kids whining ... it sounds weird but it was just awesome. You could totally blend in with all the noise and not worry about your kid disturbing anyone. This is the ultimate place to take your kid if you usually don't go out to eat. We were able to seriously relax and just enjoy the meal. I wonder about non-families that go there, I seriously do.

Definitely worth a try, especially for brunch!

Trekking on the T - Boston

I've been in Boston about 1.5 years now, and I honestly avoid taking the T if I can, Boston is a relatively small city and pretty walkable, but if I need to take public transit, I really have to say that I prefer the Red Line to any other ... I live close to the MGH/Charles St stop and it's completely accessible, with a good sized elevator to get you to the platform. There's even the handicapped entry turnstiles, which is great when you have an SUV stroller like mine (the UppaBaby Vista). There are certain stops that you have to pay attention to where you get off ... I once stopped at Park Street station and got off on the wrong side of the train to catch the elevator ... I had to wait for the next one and zip through the train to the other platform to take the elevator up.

So far I've only taken the Red and the Green Lines ... the Green Line is a story in itself ... there's so many different lines on the Green Line and it can be pretty confusing, but also there's a step up to get onto the train and some raised seating areas, so if you're getting on a crowded train it can be a real pain. I once took the Green Line all the way out to Babcock Street/Boston U. and it was really crowded. I got a lot of dirty looks for clogging up the aisles with my stroller, which I happily returned.

But the Red Line has been pretty easy to manage so far - my best trip on it has been to South Station, where you can either switch to the Silver Line or just walk from to get to the Boston Children's Museum - toddler heaven! :-)

Chevy's in NYC

We took baby & my in-laws to grab some lunch while walking around Times Square one weekend, and knowing that the more baby-friendly bets in the city tend to be chain restaurants, we ended up at Chevy's on 42nd Street:

Chevy's Fresh Mex
259 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
Ph: 212-302-4010

On the plus side, it's a large restaurant, so there's plenty of room to park a stroller or pull up a high chair if need be. They also have an elevator to get up to the second level, which is great for a restaurant in the city! The staff was actually very nice about taking us to the elevator. The bathrooms also DO have a baby-changing station, which again, is super rare in the city. The only down-side really is the food -it's lackluster ... and the prices are way too high for what they are offering. I prefer to get an Enchilada or something from the a la carte menu, it's plenty for me and saves a few bucks.

If you're meeting up with people in the city and want somewhere convenient to change baby, then it's fine, but it's really too expensive and the food isn't much worth it. I'd find somewhere else to change baby and try one of the restaurants on 9th or 10th Street!

Restaurants in Manhattan

By the time my baby was about 4 months old, we'd tested out a few restaurants in the city for their "baby-friendliness" ... the biggest issue is obviously getting there, and my last post about subways/trains talks about some of those issues, but so far we have taken him to:

California Pizza Kitchen
440 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016
(212) 685-6700

They were pretty good about accommodating us, and they certainly have the space as compared to most Manhattan restaurants. That's the thing with chain restaurants, I know everyone dumps on them, but they are so much easier when you have a baby! Anyway we had a group of about 12 people with us and they found us a nice long table where we could comfortably fit baby's stroller at the end. There was even room in the booth for my husband to pull him out of the carrier and lay him down on a blanket in the booth next to him. They offered us a high chair, but we don't need it yet.

I forgot to check while I was there, but I called later and confirmed that they do indeed have baby-changing stations in the restrooms.

Based on that experience though, I would definitely say that it was indeed, baby-friendly. I am also biased because I love their Tostada Pizza.

Tiffin Wallah
127 E 28th St
New York, NY 10016
Phone: (212) 685-7301

The folks at Tiffin Wallah were very nice in accommodating us and finding room for baby's stroller, and they DO have high chairs available. The staff was nice and smiled at baby a lot, which is better than having people roll their eyes at your baby. I personally enjoyed the food, they had a pretty good menu of Indian cuisine, but the place was more casual.

The only downside was there wasn't anywhere to change baby's diaper.

Would I go again? Yes, but I'd have to make sure I changed baby's diaper somewhere before heading in.

I will definitely add more restaurants to this list as we make future trips to NYC.

NJ PATH trains

Though I am currently based in Boston, I lived in NJ prior to this, so this post is actually about the public transportation subway system in NJ-NYC, called the PATH train.

I moved out to the "sixth borough" pretty much as soon as we found out I was preggers, and spent most of my pregnancy commuting to and from the city on the NJ PATH trains ... however it wasn't until AFTER baby was born that I realized not all stops have elevator access!!! Once you are toting a stroller around with you, you really discover how difficult it is to get around!

I now had to plan out my trips into the city, or even to other parts of Jersey City, very carefully ...

So far here's what I've found:

Journal Square station:

Has an elevator and is fairly easy to use, but you have to take one elevator from the street level to the concourse, walk through the glass doors out to where the escalators are, enter a small door next to Duane Reade and THEN take another elevator down to the platform to get on the PATH train. It takes a while ... but is clean and you'll see a lot of strollers on there.Hoboken station: elevator access is pretty good from here!

Newport-Pavonia:

Relatively easy. There's an elevator up from the platform, and then you walk up a long ramp. There's another elevator to take you to the street level.

33rd Street in Manhattan:

It's always crowded here, and lots of people like to use the elevator to get up to the street level so I've had to wait for it many times (and it really irks me that many of these people definitely don't seem to NEED the elevator). Also there's a separate handicapped-accessible ramp to the platforms here. If you need to switch to the NRQW trains (NYC Subway), you have to traipse up a loooooong hallway (uphill!) and then go through the handicapped entrance to get to the elevator which is usually pretty dingy and smells bad.

42nd Street/Times Square:

GROSS!!! The elevators here are sooooo disgusting! They literally STINK and I had to hold my nose. I felt so bad taking my baby in these elevator. The one from the concourse level up to the street is the worst. I also hate that the street level down to the concourse and the concourse to the platform for the NRQW are quite far from each other. Geez. Thanks for making it convenient.

I've also heard that the Exchange Place stop on the PATH is elevator-accessible, but I never had a chance to check it out.

Unfortunately the Grove Street stop does not have an elevator, which I find really annoying because it seems as though there are a lot of young families in that area, plus Van Vorst and Hamilton Park are fairly close to there. With all the new buildings going up in that area and the attempt to lure families to move out to what is otherwise a great area, why wouldn't they make the station accessible? I have talked to other moms in the area though, and they said that they easily carry their strollers up the stairs and usually can find someone to help them lift the stroller over the barrier. Personally when I went there, I couldn't figure out which staircase to go up and must have picked the wrong one because it seemed like a lot of stairs. And no one seemed to be around to help get over the barrier either (thank god I was wearing the Baby Bjorn that day!).

Though I no longer live in NYC, I'm sure I will head back every so often, so I will most definitely report on any further discoveries out there!