Hibachi with a Toddler

My little nugget doesn't love staying at a restaurant table for the whole meal. Usually a few minutes in, he's trying to get someone to walk around with him. This, of course, is not ideal. Most restaurants are not built for the whims of an almost 2 year old. That being said-- we're not dining out as a family super often.

But then randomly I had a thought--- what if dinner was more entertaining? Like Hibachi! Could my guy be entertained long enough for everyone to actually eat their dinner?

Well, although not perfect-- the answer was YES!

We made a reservation at IKKO in Brick with 2 other members of our family and showed up late (we're working on not being late to everything) so we had to wait a bit for a table (we deserved it! lol). The restaurant was busy so there were lots of things for our boy to watch right away. He was perfectly behaved waiting for our turn to sit.

Ikko had a high chair and brought it over as we all sat at our Hibachi table. My toddlers head immediately went on a swivel every time there was a big flame or a cheer from a table in the room. He's never seen fire like that so he was more curious than scared. Immediately I thought-- "this is gonna work!"

Before we met our chef, they serve soup and salad. Our dude normally likes to try soups but wasn't interested today. I always bring some matchbox cars for him to play with so he could keep busy-- and although he kept pushing them off the table for mommy to go fetch them, he kept pretty occupied during this time.

When our hibachi chef came over, he immediately gave our little guy a fist bump which was really sweet. As he began some fancy tricks with his tools, our toddler was mesmerized. He loudly proclaimed "egg" when the eggs for the rice came out (we make eggs together in the morning and he loves to hold them). I held him so he got a closer look at everything.

He seemed to enjoy the whole process except when they shoot sake in everyone's mouths. He watched intently as we cheered for people in our group but when the chef grabbed water for him to have some "baby sake" he got completely freaked and did the quiver lip/cry that makes any human melt. He was calmed pretty quickly and was fine the rest of the time.

The biggest issue for our nugget was he didn't want to eat. He had 1 carrot all night. This is a new thing for him and he has times when he refuses to eat at home too so I wasn't too worried. After we got back to our place I was able to get him to eat a few healthy things before getting him ready for bed which was fine.

Around dessert, our bub was itching to leave so we got and paid our check quickly. We only needed to take two toddler prompted walks around the place to get us thru dinner which in our recent track record--seemed excellent to us. We would definitely do this again in a few months to see how his reactions to everything change. Big thank you to Ikko for providing us with an awesome family experience! See you soon!