It had been a few months since we’d been inside 19th Ave’s Vios Cafe. We live so close to the restaurant that we keep it in “reserve” it for when we really need it — like when it’s pouring rain or, given Vios’ kid-friendly environs, when we’re going out with friends with children. But a rainy night and a date with new parents brought us to what we have called the Chuck E. Cheese of Capitol Hill.

Visiting the restaurant for dinner is equivalent to eating in a zoo for yuppie children. That might sound miserable but it’s actually quite fun.

“You have a dinosaur on your head,” one of the zoo inhabitants announced, balanced on the low wall surrounding the kid play area in the back of the restaurant. It was true. One of our dining companions did, indeed, have a plastic velociraptor perched on his head thanks to another of the zoo’s inhabitants who was also clambering atop the low wall.

We got a good laugh, the little devils buzzed off and we dug back into the gorgeously delicious semolina custard layered between crispy layers of phylo that we were sharing for dessert.

We’ve written about Vios quite a bit so consider this a reminder that those rainy days you’ve been waiting for are here and the zoo inhabitants are waiting for you. With dinosaurs.

–j/k