Old Wives' Tales Restaurant: Kid Friendly Dining in Portland, Oregon

Old Wives' Tales (located at 1300 E. Burnside, Portland, OR, 97214) is a kid friendly, healthy conscious restaurant where parents can take their kids and enjoy a meal without worrying about what their child is doing. Situated on the East Side of Portland - Old Wives' Tales is easy to find with plenty of parking in the parking lot or nearby side streets.

Sometimes as a parent, it's just nice to be able to go to a restaurant and kind of let your kid go - not worry about what they are doing when they're not sitting at the table. With a fun playroom painted with brightly colored murals and a kind of kids clubhouse kind of feel - the kids will be busy leaving the parents to enjoy a relatively quiet meal out.

Most of the time a meal out like this requires going to some child themed pizza parlor with not so healthy dining options - but that's another nice thing about Old Wives' Tales - the vegetarian friendly menu. And I mean vegetarian friendly, not strictly vegetarian, as there are plenty of options for the meat eaters in the family. The emphasis here is on health conscious, as each plate is prepared with organic veggies and fruits and local farm fresh meats.

A favorite of mine is the Indian Burrito - which is as its name states, a burrito - but instead of the usual beans and rice and meat is instead filled with a red lentil tomato dal, fresh onions and olives, and brown basmati rice - with your choice of Southwestern lime chicken added. A nice departure from the regular kid restaurant food.

The kids' menu is also worth mentioning as it features old standards like grilled cheese and peanut butter and jelly - typical comfort foods - to their version of macaroni and cheese which is made of noodles with asiago cheese and cream.

On the children's breakfast menu they also have a poppyseed pancake, a cornmeal oatmeal pancake, scambled eggs or a tofu scramble. Plenty of juice options and hot chocolate for the chilly days.

The staff is friendly and very used to having kids running under foot - so it's generally not a problem and not too embarrasing when you're two year old has a melt down because they wanted their peanut butter and jelly on white instead of wheat.

Old Wives' Tales Restaurant in Portland is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. most days, and till 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Kids are always welcome and the food is always fresh.