Alfresco Restaurant, 382 Highland Ave, Somerville, MA

Alfresco Restaurant, in the former location of Out of the Blue near Davis Square, has been one of our favorites for a while. Its Sunday brunch got rave reviews a year or so ago, and we've therefore avoided the Sunday brunch, but we like to go during the week, when it's quiet and uncrowded.

Alfresco serves consistently delicious Italian food, always a kid-pleaser, and it's reasonably priced, with the most expensive dish around $15. We used to get the seafood bruschetta every time we came until we got thoroughly sick of it. The restaurant is small and has no kid amenities beyond high chairs, but that block of Highland Ave has plenty to interest small kids, including When Pigs Fly bakery for fresh bread, the Dairy Bar for fresh, local goods (milk in glass bottles!), and Kick*ss Cupcakes for dessert. So we order, then one of us takes the kids for a walk. The food comes, we sit the kids down to eat, and when they're done, the other of us takes them for another walk. It works out nicely.

A few days ago, with our kitchen faucet broken and no running water in the kitchen, we threw our hands up and went out to Alfresco for dinner. There, we got not only great food but, hands down, the best, most kid-friendly service we've ever experienced. It was amazing.

First, since the restaurant was nearly empty when we arrived, the waitress who met us let the kids pick their table. There were two waitresses who served us more or less equally and worked very well as a team. We ordered our drinks, and they brought milk in a take-out coffee cup with a straw for our two-year-old, a pretty common trick that most restaurants use.

While my husband took the kids for a potty break, I ordered: tortellini with prosciutto for my husband, porcini ravioli for myself, fettucine alfredo for the girls to split, and an Alfresco Salad, which was listed as an assortment of grilled vegetables, for all of us to share.

A waitress brought out sliced bread with a dish of olive oil, a dish of spicy red pepper aioli, and a dish of grated parmesan cheese. Our kids dug into this gleefully, dipping in the olive oil, then the parmesan, spreading both liberally over the table. Our two-year-old tried the aioli, burst into tears, and kept on eating it because even with the spiciness, it was delicious.

As they were demolishing the bread, our salad arrived, and here's my one gripe: it was the wrong salad. Instead of grilled vegetables, we got a warm spinach salad. This turned out to be utterly delicious. The spinach was layered with sauteed mushrooms, topped with crispy bits of prosciutto, and ringed with fresh feta-like cheese and slices of tomato, all dressed in a balsamic vinegrette. Our two-year-old claimed half the tomatoes, and my husband and I ate the rest with glee.

And then the waitresses arrived to clear the table for our entrees. To our complete astonishment and delight, they didn't just take away the empty plates. They removed the now-empty breadbasket and the accompanying dishes, and they CLEANED THE TABLE. All of it, the dribbles of olive oil and spatters of parmesan and crusts and general kid-generated clutter, so that we had a clean table when the food came.

And that brought another surprise. Rather than bringing us the fettucine alfredo and two small plates for the girls, they actually served it in two small bowls, half for each, which meant that we could all immediately dig into our dinners. This tiny detail was so thoughtful and lovely that it was sad that the thermal heat of the pasta undid it - we had to spoon off some of the noodles to cool enough for the girls to eat.

And then they brought another breadbasket with olive oil and parmesan, no aioli, for the girls. Quick studies, these women.

After one bite each, my husband and I promptly traded our dishes. I love mushrooms, but I'm not thrilled with cream sauce, and he loves tortellini and prosciutto but not tomato sauce. The trade fixed this problem admirably. The creamy tomato sauce on the tortellini was heavenly, and after I had finished the pasta, I kept snitching bread from the girls to sop up the remaining sauce. My husband expressed similar satisfaction with the cream sauce on his ravioli in contented monosyllables.

We polished off our dishes, but even after dividing the fettucine, there was still enough left over to feed the girls the next day. They wrapped it up for us, along with the remaining bread, while my husband and the girls meandered down the block for cupcakes. When the check came, I gave them a 25% tip and wrote under it, "Best Service Ever." I meant it. Never, in the five years since my first daughter was born, have I experienced the caliber of service that these two women provided us. Perhaps the fact that one of them was pregnant helped.

I urge you to try this restaurant. The food is excellent, the neighborhood is fun, and you'll leave relaxed and happy, a rarity when dining out with children.

EDIT: Restaurant ratings:

3 smileys for fabulous service

3 carrots for healthy food

1 moo for low price

Full Moon Restaurant, 344 Huron Ave., Cambridge

I first heard about Full Moon back when they were located on Mass Ave in Arlington (where Za is now). I was pregnant with my first child and invited a pregnant friend to come and try it out with me. At the time, we thought it was good food but overpriced. A few years later, we tried Full Moon in its new location on Huron Ave in Cambridge with our 3-year-old, and we had the same impression. Yes, the food was good, but not outstanding, and a little pricey. Yes, the play area was nice, but not nice enough to keep our 3-year-old occupied throughout dinner so that we could eat peacefully.

How things change. Today, we tried Full Moon for brunch with our five-year-old, her best friend (also five), and our two-year-old. And it was lovely.

The restaurant was about three-quarters full with lots of other children ranging from 12 months to 12 years dining their with their families. The train table was very popular, as was the play kitchen along the wall. Every dining table was covered with white sheets of paper and equipped with a cup of assorted crayons.

And the menu was excellent. The adult fare was well balanced between breakfast and lunch offerings. My husband ordered the huevos rancheros, and I ordered the curried chicken salad over mesclun greens. The kids' menu was not only varied but more nutritionally balanced than most kid menus I've ever seen. One five-year-old ordered the cheese pizza with fruit. The other ordered the hot dog with french fries and fruit. Our two-year-old wanted chicken fingers with fries and fruit.

Without exception, all three girls ate the fruit first. It was a nice melon salad: cantalope and honeydew. I think there might have been some kind of red fruit in there, watermelon or grapes perhaps, but they disappeared before I could identify them. Our two-year-old demolished her chicken fingers and fries as well as some of my tomatoes and tortilla chips from my husband. Our five-year-old ate all of her fruit one slice of pizza, the bun from her friend's hot dog, one of my pieces of bread, and the few remaining fries on her sister's plate. Our guest ate all the fruit and about a third of everything else on her plate, having inhaled her tall glass of orange juice before her food even arrived.

And then the kids decamped for the play area, leaving my husband and I to eat in glorious peace. I loved the curried chicken salad, slightly crunchy with walnuts and slightly sweetened by raisins. The mesclun salad was also wonderfully fresh - I am very picky about my mesclun, and these were good, fresh greens, if slightly overdressed. The salad was accompanied by two small slices of baguette, claimed by my elder daughter.

My husbands huevos rancheros consisted of two eggs over easy topped with salsa, a link of chorizo sliced in half lengthwise and grilled, a serving of black beans, homemade flour tortilla chips that he loved, and sour cream. I tried the chorizo and liked it a lot. The spiciness crept up on me and hit the back of my throat well after I'd swallowed. It went well with the lemonade.

The service, which I had remembered as being lackluster, was right on today: cheerful, responsive, competent. The kids had a great time, we had a great meal, and it was all reasonably priced. I can't wait to go back.

EDIT: Restaurant ratings:

4 smileys for good service and great kid space

4 carrots for healthy food

2 moos for moderate price

The Challenge of Dining with Small Children

If you live in the Boston area and have small children - and by this I mean children too young to reliably sit still and not throw food at each other and you - you may be experiencing the problem I have: finding good restaurants where both you and your children enjoy eating. I've found that many so-called children's restaurants (Friendly's, Chuck E. Cheese, etc.) have miserable food for both the kids and the adults, and most restaurants with food I like eating lack either good kid's menus, a comfortable, kid-friendly environment, or amenable service. Having found two good restaurants in the past week, I've decided to start up yet another blog so that I can share them with the local Boston community.

I will use the following rating system:

• Smileys: These indicate how kid-friendly the restaurant is, including service and play space, if any.
  
• Carrots: These indicate how healthy the kid's menu offerings are. Bonus points for local food.
• Moos: Short for moolah, these indicate how expensive the food was.

In all cases, one = worst and five=best.

Now, on with the reviews!