Healthy Meals for Kids: Alice Waters Partners With Hyatt

Can vegetables and fruit be beautiful? After meeting Alice Waters earlier this week at Berkeley's Edible Schoolyard, I'm utterly convinced that they can be.

Waters has partnered with Hyatt Hotels and Resorts to create a three-course organic menu for kids. Here's what full-service Hyatt properties in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean will be serving up this summer, with Waters expected to dream up a winter menu next.

Salad: Romaine lettuce hearts with carrot curls and a radish rose, with lemon vinaigrette for dipping
Entree: Grilled chicken with pesto sauce, roasted potatoes, and cherry tomatoes
Dessert: Strawberry and orange slices served in a real orange cup

Photo Courtesy of Hyatt

The Alice Waters-inspired kids' menu ($16.95) is already available at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach and the Hyatt Regency Maui, with ingredients sourced locally according to the Chez Panisse founder's vision. Vacation calories don't count, we often joke. But as Waters pointed out Tuesday at the Hyatt media lunch in Berkeley, "[w]e have done a great injustice to (our youth) by feeding them food that isn't good for them."

Maintaining healthy food habits on the road isn't always easy when kids often have the option to order burgers every day. In Hyatt's new For Kids By Kids menu, the company has removed that temptation by taking the burger off its kids' menu. Though you can still request a burger off the adult menu (at half price for kids), the option just isn't staring children in the face at each meal.

If you've ever been overwhelmed by a bottomless buffet aboard a cruise ship or at an all-inclusive resort, it's clearly not just Hyatt hotel restaurants that could use a little bit of inspiration from Alice Waters. All this, of course, leaves the adults wondering if we'll get funny looks if we start ordering off the Hyatt kids' menu.

Below are some photos taken at the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, where I could hardly believe that I was passing a bowl of hummus to the food legend herself.



Photos by Amy Chen

NYC's Restaurant Grades: Grossed Out by a C Rating

I first wrote about New York City's restaurant grades for Gadling.com when I set up a poll to ask: Would you eat at a place with mice?

Since then, I've seen more restaurants around the city receive letter-grade signs that must be displayed prominently in the window. I was walking around the West Village yesterday when I saw my first C-rated restaurant -- in this case, it was Mojo Coffee, a sweet little cafe that would've otherwise been tempting -- until I saw the C grade displayed in the window like a huge "stay away" warning. How could it have earned a C? I couldn't help but imagine that perhaps rat droppings were mixed in with the coffee beans.

I've since looked up Mojo Coffee on NYC's Dept. of Health site and found that among the health violations, there was "evidence of mice or live mice present in facility's food and/or non-food areas" and "filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/sewage-associated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies. Facility not vermin proof. Harborage or conditions conducive to attracting vermin to the premises and/or allowing vermin to exist."

Tasty.