The Manora Restaurant

Manor, the department store in the middle of the city has a self-service restaurant, which seems to be one of the most popular eateries in the city. On Saturday we went there around 11.30 so that the girls could eat. It's pretty easy to feed them in this place. My top tip for parents of toddlers, once your kids can actually feed themselves find somewhere cheap to take them for lunch and dinner at the weekends and hey presto! Someone else has to do the cooking and the tidying up, it's a great investment. We aren't the only parents in Geneva to have discovered this, at that time of day probably half the people in the place have kids with them. The other half are quaint late middle aged couples where the husband is sitting waiting at a table, looking slightly lost, whilst his wife is off getting coffee and a cake for both of them, because that's what they have done every Saturday for the last 18 months.
Every 20 minutes someone walks past with a trolley, ready to clear the table. Typically this turns in to a merry-go-round, a careful dance of after you George, as the clearer struggles to determine what on our table is finished. For some reason our kids in the restaurant tend to eat from four different plates, a bit from Mummy's a bit from Daddy;s a little from each others. They pick a bit from this, a bit from that, but you know the moment you think they've finished they'll find something else to pick at. So when the trolley person comes to the table, waves their hand at the various plates you have on the table, it's like they've asked you to spot the difference between blank pieces of paper, you scrutinise each plate for potential morsels for your kids before giving the nod to the clearer to take them away. In the end the kids hoover up the rest of the food with my help. As we leave the table, a quick look behind makes me feel guilty and sad for whoever uses the table after us as scraps of food litter the floor and the girls chairs. Then sigh with relief because I don't have to clear anything up.