When you have a child who reaches the toddler stage, you have the challenge when it comes to eating out of how to deal with a bundle of energy that doesn’t want to sit down for long stretches and perhaps doesn’t like being quiet for very long, despite how well behaved (or otherwise!) they are.

When this stage is reached, certain restaurants become a godsend when it comes to making you feel relaxed with little ones in tow. For this reason, we were delighted to be invited to try out Giraffe, a family-friendly chain restaurant in Trinity Leeds.

Giraffe have launched a new ‘world tapas’ menu where you can get five dishes and a bottle of wine for £24.95, which is pretty affordable for a treat night out. After much deliberation, we decided to go for patatas bravas, baked topped hummus, beef tacos, smoky chorizo, and a garlic and rocket flatbread. There were plenty of other amazing sounding dishes to pick from – in fact, we were disappointed to miss out on the karaage chicken, which had already been gobbled up by other diners!

As well as our dishes, we also ordered our little lady a chicken katsu kids’ dish and we all sat back and waited for our food to arrive, our little one with a good range of crayons and a plastic pink giraffe to hand! Our food didn’t take long to turn up and our little one wasted no time gobbling up the rather tasty katsu dish that she had in front of her. She was definitely a fan and loved telling us all about the fact her dish had come with rice and chicken!

While we weren’t huge fans of the baked hummus, the tacos were divine, the chorizo hit the spot with a smoky sweetness and perfectly cooked texture, and the flatbread and bravas (brought to life by some heavenly aioli) filled us up nicely with a hit of carbs! While none of the dishes were what you would describe as standout and were certainly not at the same tapas level you would expect at places like Iberica, the relaxed atmosphere, family-friendly environment, and reasonable prices all made Giraffe a venue that we would happily head back to when we want a night off cooking.