Seb’s Bistro and Playhouse (Maybe)

In our attempts to find more places for playdates between Eva and Kayden, we decided to check out Seb’s Bistro and The Playhouse at Rochester. (If you do know of any, would be most grateful if you could drop us a message!)

The day didn’t start off well. When we tried to park at the resturant’s small carpark (5 lots), we were promptly told that other diners had already made reservations for this lot – that being the case, shouldn’t we have been advised, when we made the reservation, that we should ‘reserve’ a lot if we were driving?

The second disruption happened when we were shown to the table – we had made a reservation the day before for a table ‘beside the playhouse’. I even emphasised to the person who took my call that we wanted to be able to ‘watch our children as we ate’. He agreed over the phone, but we were given a table that was nowhere near the play area. This resulted in a minor disagreement – but the staff insisted they could do nothing about it since the entire area near to the playroom had been booked for a private event.

In any case, we quickly settled in and ordered our food (since breakfast orders closed at 10.30am). Luckily for us, it was a cool and breezy day, because the entire restaurant consisted only of outdoor seating. The (air-conditioned) bungalow was used entirely for the kids play area.

On the bright side, the kids had the most enjoyable time there – for just $7, there were plenty of toys to keep the children entertained, it was air-conditioned (no sweaty kids to deal with), relatively safe (wooden flooring and adequately cushioned), and you could (if you wanted to) leave your children alone in the playhouse (though I wouldn’t advise you to do so).

(Eva’s favourite was the slide and ball pit, while K’s favourite was the train set.)

Despite the advertisement that children can be left in ‘safe hands’ with child minders, it was in fact, a pretty dangerous place – the child minders were most inadequate! There were two of them, but instead of keeping an eye on the children, they were mostly doing their own random stuff (blowing balloons as decor, keeping/tidying toys, processing payment/new children entering).

In fact, at one point of time, there were no minders in the room at all (one had taken a child to the loo, while the other was decorating a section of the restaurant [which was totally separate from the playhouse]). This means that no one entertained a crying kid (looking for his mum), nor moderated the elder kids bashing and shoving the babies. Worse still, one kid actually managed to leave the playroom by himself!!! (Thankfully, a watchful and helpful parent dragged him back in.)

When we eventually left with our two babies in tow, there was no one to sign us out – imagine, anyone could have left with our tots!

On the food, quality was average, but price was ok – $50 for 3 servings of breakfast (lunch and dinner was far pricier though). Still, it beats eating fries and plain tomato spaghetti that all other places with a playground for kids serve!

Would probably be back if we had a big group comprising many children to dine with – the adults can then take turns sitting in the playroom to make sure all the children are safe while the rest ate in peace!

P.S. Please bear with K’s ugly haircut for now :( Have to wait till it grows out before I can trim it!!