I love to eat out. Love it, love it, LOVE IT!!!! I used to eat out once a day, every day and many time up to all three meals would be purchased and eaten out. I’m really not one for the kitchen, to say the least. So when I was diagnosed with all of these food allergies (a gluten allergy and casein allergy, amongst others) I thought, hey, how hard can it be to eat non-wheat/oat/rye/barley/dairy? Well, it’s hard. It’s very hard. SUPER DOOPER hard, as our five-year-old son says. Here in the good ol’ US of A, just about all of our pre-prepared foods have gluten and/or casein in them. For the first few weeks, I didn’t really change our going out habits – we’d still go out for a meal at LEAST once a day. I’d try to order the least innocuous menu items: salads, grilled meats and veggies… but would still feel super “full” after eating them from the allergic bloating reaction. Slowly, over several months (December ’09 – March ’10) I came to the realization that eating out is just plain dangerous when it comes to being GFCF. Over the four months of trying/reacting/identifying offending foods & places, I began a “safe” list of places to eat. They’re few and far between, but I can regularly go to them and be reaction free. Which is SO worth it: the symptoms I get from eating dairy and (especially) gluten are just icky and uncomfortable, it’s not worth risking eating somewhere I might get cross-contaminated. Now more and more places are realizing there’s money to be made through...
Well, I was very upset to learn that Moe’s Southwest Grill is off my Safe Restaurant List. Before finding out about my gluten and dairy allergies, Moe’s was one of my favorite places to go (the Pinky Toscadaro and Close Talker Salads were worth ordering for the smile-inducing names alone!). But then my local Moe’s closed last year before I went GFCF, so I never even thought about it. But I always assumed in my GFCF ignorance that Moe’s would be like Chipotle or Pollo Tropical and offer some good GFCF options. So I was very excited to see that it reopened last week – in the same location (who knows what happened there…!). Anyway. Boy, was I WRONG. Moe’s Southwest Grill is NOT GFCF safe at all! Here’s what they say when contacted via email about gluten: Thanks for getting in touch with us. The vegetable stock is used in almost all of our food preparation and does contain gluten.For the time being it is safe to eat chicken and veggies. I would definitely avoid the queso, chips, the tortillas, and the taco/salad shells. The chicken is the only protein that is safe to consume. We are still working to have a gluten free menu in the future. Please let me know if you have any other questions. And if you go to their official website, they have a very outdated Allergen Information PDF – it’s actually dated over two YEARS ago! “effective as of 2/25/2008.” Yikes. I’m sorry, but there’s no was I’ll be trusting my sensitive GFCF system to this kind of laid-back attitude about allergens. Not when...
Fast food that’s GFCF?! Who knew it was possible? But it is at Pollo Tropical Today I had lunch with my DH at our neigborhood Pollo Tropical and had a wonderful meal, yet again. This is my go-to place for fast, easy, always GFCF food. Pollo Tropical is actually a member of the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), so they’re really aware of the considerations necessary to accommodate food sensitive people. The staff at the three Pollo Tropicals I frequent are always super nice and friendly. And every single employee I’ve ever interacted with has taken my food allergies very seriously and were extremely conscientious with the gluten. Since going GF on Dec 3rd, I’ve probably been here a dozen or more times and have NEVER had any reaction. So, what do I eat here? I love the Tropichops! It’s a bowl of rice and beans with your choice of meat on top. I usually get the Chicken Tropichop with white rice (I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the yellow rice has gluten in it, but it’s not listed on the official Pollo Tropical Allergy List… but I always get white to be safe) and black beans. They have a Regular and a Large, but the large comes with a side Caesar salad, so I always get the Regular (and it’s more than enough to eat.. I usually take some home!). To spice it up a little, I put on a bunch of mild salsa from the salsa bar. And I usually get the combo meal (adds a side and a drink). For my side I always get the super delicious Plantains. They’re...
Eating out and being truly gluten free and casein free is proving to be very difficult. There’s milk and gluten in SOOO many prepared foods. I’ve been hearing from people that going to oriental restaurants is the way to go: not a lot of dairy in general and plenty of rice and veggies. So today for lunch we went to Pei Wei to give their Gluten Free Menu a try. I was initially a little disappointed with the number of items to choose from (there are currently only five menu items) but all of them seemed to be dairy free too. I ordered the Vietnamese Chicken Salad Rolls without Thai peanut sauce (they are in the regular menu under the Salad section). When ordering, I told them about being allergic to dairy and being gluten free. The girl behind the counter was a little confused about the whole “gluten free menu” thing and deferred to a more experienced employee. She, fortunately, knew all about the gluten free menu button on the computer, so she showed her “go here to the Gluten Free Menu, then just push the item and that’s it.” When our order was delivered, the server made a point of saying “Gluten Free Vietnamese Chicken Salad Rolls” when he announced the order to see who had what. That was very encouraging. And then when I ate the first bite… YUM!!! They we absolutely delicious!!! Fresh and tasty, the chicken, veggies and mint came wrapped in a nice soft rice paper. It was nice and cool and light, but with three full rolls to an order, very filling and satisfying....
