Pastis: With Kids?

After taking Boy 1 and Boy 2 to "The Producers" on Sunday, we took them out to eat. It was the quite the grown up day for two people whose ages combined wouldn't allow them to vote. We had great success taking them to Florent in the past and wanted to try something different and maybe a bit more fancy (we were pushing our luck after our Paris trip). In that vein, we origianlly thought of Balthazaar, but when we couldn't get reservations, we decided to go to Pastis instead. It was a straight shot downtown after the theater anyway, and, as anticipated, after a long afternoon of somewhat inappropriate theater, those boys were hungry!

I have several observations about Pastis. While I realize that we were going early, on Easter Sunday, while Passover was still going on, I was still impressed at the lack of New Yorkers in the restaurant. I think I saw more New Yorkers eating in bistros in France. Also, if you averaged the ages of the four of us, it was about the same age as many of the other tables. Having said that, if you have reservations, Pastis is a perfectly pleasant place to eat with kids. The service is fast, they make Shirley Temples, and have a perfectly good bistro menu long on hamburgers, pasta and red meat. The steak frite, ordered medium rare, arrived medium rare. And their Sunday special, cassoulet, is quite good. Oysters were good, but I will not get them again. Moule Frite was acceptable. The place is noisy enough so that a little whining is not noticed.

Having said that, both boy 1 and boy 2 preferred Florent. When the lovely wife asked why, boy 1 said "the music." In fact, there is no music at Pastis, while Florent provides a pulsing 80s disco soundtrack most of the time! And MM like the fact that its a lot less money, and to be honest, the service is a lot friendlier (although it was great at both places).