Auntie M's - Gluten Free Food Truck

 Recently my husband and I were talking about state fairs and it came up, that he'd never been to any state fair, ever. I remember growing up, going with one of the neighbors to see the Wisconsin State fair, and going again with friends after college. As I looked at events at the fair I saw Lindsey Stirling was performing one day so we decided we'd get tickets and get there early to check out the fair. The week leading up to the fair I saw a post on a Milwaukee Celiac group about a gluten free food truck being there. I was shocked to realize this was 'a thing'! I had pumped up my husband on how he'd have to get a cream puff, cause it's just what you do at the Wisconsin state fair. But now I had options for amazing food too, not just whatever we hunted down. 

Once we found parking and found our way into the fair we found an information booth and found where the Auntie M's food truck was parked. which was the exact opposite end of the park. The lady at the information booth was doing her best to talk us into other options, but finally gave up when I told her I only wanted gluten free options, she said this was it. She wasn't 100% correct, we saw other options, although limited as we walked around We also saw a Vegan food truck too. 

After joking I was going to order 1 of everything on the truck, I did get a corndog, cheese curds and went back and got a funnel cake. I mean, I had to! I can't remember the last time I had a funnel cake! 

We walked around, checked out the expo center and mile shops, and saw some of the cows being shown, and of course had to check out the pig races. We were waiting for our concert, and my husband found a brat and eventually I decided to get some roasted corn. We want to know how much corn you have to bring daily to meet the demand of the people getting corn. While waiting in line for our corn, I left my husband there to get water and saw a sign on another booth for Gluten Free Chicken, Hamburger, and "Boneless Wings" with sauce. I was in awe! After the concert we wanted a cold beverage and I decided I needed some wings for the walk back to the car. We had so much fun, enjoyed all the food and beverage options, my husband ask "Why don't they do this every weekend in summer, this is fun!" 

The one drawback was, I never eat fried food. It's so hard to find any safe fried food, other than Five Guys Fries or Chik Fila Fries, so all the fried food made my stomach unhappy, but honestly I didn't care! It was all so good and I was able to handle it to get home and some lower back heat helped a lot! 

 For a fair I give them 4 dragonflies, if you look hard enough there are options, and their website has info if a vendor has listed it in their food listing.  For the food truck I give the same rating. I will say they have a perfect model going on technically 3 items, that as soon as someone orders, you make another, knowing you're just going to have a steady stream of customers for those 3 items. So wait time is minimal, and it's food that is rare for someone who is gluten free. I was disappointed they didn't have cheese or honey for the corndogs, but I know I have some weird tastes for how I spice up my food. I am following Auntie M's to see when they may be back near Milwaukee, or if we're heading to Minnesota, where I might find them! 

Obscurity Brewing

 Obscurity Brewing and Mead Hall - Came to check out this place as a stop on our beer passport this summer. While we weren't planning to get food while here, we weren't that hungry. But as we sampled Meads, Cider and my husband had beer, food sounded good, so we opted to try the BBQ platter. Chatted it up with our beertender about gluten free options, what was safe, if the sauces were safe, (Which they all are safe) and she put our order in. Sadly she forgot to mark it gluten free, so it came out with a piece of bread in the middle of the plate. 

I will say I'm more and more annoyed with places that just add bread to things, why can't you just add it to the menu listing! Then we could more specifically say "Make sure not to add the bread!!" 

Our server apologized multiple times that it was her fault and had a fresh plate brought out to us. We were wowed. This was honestly some of the best BBQ we've had in a long time. Their Alabama white sauce was tasty and not just peppery. The Ribs fell right off the bones, and the brisket was lean and not fatty at all. We also really like the elote. There was the right amount of spice and flavor. Almost as good as the elote we had that was topped with bacon! 

We actually came back with friends a few weeks later. We planned out a brewery hop for the day to try different things, making note to everyone that this was where we were getting dinner, because it's just that good! They have a rotation of 3-4 ciders or meads from their cider/meadery across the street, and also have cocktails, so it's a well rounded selection of food and adult beverages and great fun atmosphere. I give them 5 dragonflies, because the BBQ was so good and the staff was very understanding.

Benjeyehuda - Gluten Free Safe.

Benjeyehuda - Funny sounding but safe place to eat for gluten free food! They currently have a handful of locations in and around Chicago. We opted to try it out. They do understand gluten and are really good for safe options. They even have French Fries, which you can get with melted Mekrts cheddar cheese on the side! The other exciting part they have gluten free falafel! Roti does also, but I have run across places without safe Falafel, which makes me sad. The name Benjeyehuda was created by the owners while in Jerusalem one time.

We went all in and got a combo bowl, which comes with both chicken and steak as well as falafel. You get to choose white or brown rice, or lettuce for a bedding. After that you have your variety of veggies, hummus and more. It is a lot of food so go when you're super hungry! It was so good. We had gone at lunch time and honestly didn't eat dinner later that night cause we'd had so much food. It was really tasty too. While I never reheat a Chipotle burrito bowl for a 2nd meal, I am always willing to reheat my combo bowls from here.

The one thing we've realized is eating this late at night makes you feel bloated and huge cause there is a lot of food. I love that there are customization options and you're not limited to 1 item. They are doing wraps now, so it's not 100% gluten free, but they make each meal right in front of you as you order, so you can watch the safety of the prep. I give them 5 Dragonflies cause they give you so many options, and so much food. You can't go wrong with a meal from here. 

 

Water Street Brewing- Wisconsin

Normally when we head up to Eagle, WI area we always head over to David Allen Allen Smokehouse for amazing BBQ. But one of the things we love about them is their outside patio they installed during Covid. It's a nice place to hang and eat with friends. On our recent trip up there it was a misty, rainy day and we were bummed, but thought we'd check Find Me Gluten Free and see what other options might be interesting, and we found Water Street Brewing Co. Now, I know some people have issues with FMGF and the accuracy of the options. But we always read reviews and look at the site before going to a new place. We've yet to be steered wrong, and have found some great places that even our non-gf friends end up frequenting. 

We looked up Water Street and saw they even listed the gluten free menu on their website, so we headed over there. There was a bunch of cute shops right there including Penzy Spices, which I had to stop to get spices from, since they're so gluten free friendly. 

This summer we've been checking out breweries and trying flights where we can, so this fit the bill of what we've been looking for all summer. I was excited at Water Street I could get a fancy grilled cheese with a salad as the side, along with some very tasty cocktails. I'd never thought of a rootbeer Old Fashioned being a thing, and honestly it was super tasty. The server was super knowledgeable and even did a double check on ingredients when I seemed concerned, mostly cause my bread was so large when I saw my sandwich. My husband was excited by the size of his flight and how big the pours were. 

The sandwich was so tasty and while salad is not my preferred side, it was actually a good tasting salad that was fresh and didn't taste processed. We actually ended up here a month later with my brother, who was impressed by the 'foodie' menu they had. Though he says he's not a foodie.... He tried one of the light beers, since we had a lot more stops in our day so he didn't want to get anything too heavy. I got a nicoise salad, I'll be honestly I can't pronounce it, but it was so good. I added beef short rib to it, which was just what it needed. 

Honestly, I'm ready to go back - Everything I've had was so good and the service and the people there are so nice. I give them 5 Dragonflies because the options, the taste and the service are all wonderful! 

 

 

 

Prairie Street Brewing Company

Prairie St Brewing Company - We’ve now been here a few times, not a huge place, definitely has more seating in the summer when you can sit on the patio and watch the water flowing of the Rock River. The menu is a bit hip for a brewery, they are definitely trying to compete with the Chicago microbreweries for Nuevo style foods. We saw one of the appetizers was a cheese board, with tortilla chips. It was a unique style idea. The cheeses were dip/spreadable cheeses. Such a simple idea, and so good. My loving Non GF Hubby kept raving about the Pimento cheese that I actually had to find a recipe and make it at home. Other cheeses included Buffalo cheese and jalapeno cream cheese. All super tasty. I honestly could come here and just eat this. Their beers are not gluten free, (though a review on Findmeglutenfree says they are, they’re not) but they offer several canned ciders. One being Schilling’s Pineapple Mango Cider. Super tasty and unique. I actually hit up Binny’s Beverage Depot and got a case. When I told the server I need to be gluten free, she even told me she’d confirm the cider was gluten free before bringing it out. Really awesome!

Look at this cheese board? Isn't it gorgeous??? 

I got the Taquito salad the first time we came. It was tasty and unique, but I think it was a bit too much Kimchi for my stomach. I didn’t have a gluten reaction, but it definitely left me hitting the bathroom a few times after eating it.

Second visit the menu with the daily specials caught my attention. I’m not a big meatloaf person, but it sounded so good! The ribs sounded good, but a bit to eccentric for me, so I was glad the Non-GF hubby got them so I could try a little but not make such a commitment to the meal. We totally filled up on the cheese board and tortillas, so we had left overs. The food was really good, the portions are hearty, but service is a bit sparse. Our server kept wandering off and we kept having to flag someone down to get what we needed.

  The meatloaf really hit the spot, there wasn't too much sauce and the potatoes were very rich. I love that so much of their food is farm to table and unique. 

I give them 5 Dragonflies for their unique but plentiful menu options and even having GF markings for the daily specials. 

 

We're working on finding another day to take some more friends back to check out what is on the new seasonal menu and hopefully get to sit out on the outside patio and take in some summer sun and beautiful weather.

Alchemy at Aldeen - Rockford

Alchemy at Aldeen – We found on accident, well with the help of Find Me Gluten Free. We were planning on hitting up Prairie Street Brewing, one of our favorite places in Rockford, but noticed the parking lot was beyond packed and nearby vacant lots and street parking were full also. Seeing that Prairie Street is also an event venue, we assumed something was going on, but decided the meal would be slow, long and may not even get a table for some time, but we were hungry and on our way to Wisconsin for the weekend. 

We found Alchemy and headed that direction, it wasn’t far, and happened to be at one of the local golf courses as the country club. The inside of the restaurant was super charming and cute, I felt a bit under dressed, but I don’t think it really mattered. Most people were chilling on the patio or at the bar.

The Gluten Free options on the menu were impressive and plentiful. Most things it felt like could be made gluten free. Their format for the winter months is to operate like a super club and have a fancy cocktail menu to match it.

My husband went with the 52 day barrel aged Old Fashioned and I got a daiquiri. His Old Fashioned was pretty tasty, not strong or harsh and went down smoothly. My Daiquiri was a bit like a margarita and super satisfying. 

For dinner I got the pasta bosco it was super interesting as it had chunks of beef, mushrooms and was in a broth style sauce. I have to try making this at home as it was so good and didn’t give me heartburn since it wasn’t a tomato sauce! The servers were very conscious to call out gluten free when repeating the order and bringing out the food. Which was good, cause the pasta was so good I honestly questioned if it was gluten free. 

The server told us they’d be starting their summer menu soon with handhelds and lighter far for enjoying on the patio. Hopefully that continues to be gluten free plentiful.

I give them 5 dragonflies – The food and drink were both amazing, the staff was attentive, and the ambiance was great. I would go here for a date night any time!

 

Arby’s Eating Dirty

While doing a roadtrip halfway across the country  during covid to visit my Sister-In-Law on the East coast, we got to talking about places to drive thru for options, and trying to find something different, as we got away from our Urban options who would have things like Chik-Fila, Jimmy Johns, Jersey Mikes…. And I questioned “Would an Arby’s beef sandwich be gluten free if served not on a bun?” My husband asked “Would you eat it like that, or on your own bun?” 

So we set off to the grocery store, found some BFree Pita’s and went to Arby’s and ordered a Double Beef and Cheddar in a bowl. We found a cute spot to park near a river by a park and pulled out our car trays and proceeded to have lunch. I built my beef and cheddar into the pita pocket while we laughed and had one of the best ‘dirty food’ meals I’d had in a long time. At the time they still did a side salad as an option so that and my beef and cheddar hit the spot and we cracked up that it took us 10 years to think of this as an idea! At the time Arby's still had a side salad option, which made a nice touch to the meal. Now they no longer have the salad sadly, but I'll survive.

Since than we've stopped at Arbys on more than a few occasions, for something different to eat.  I always make sure to have a bread option with me, or we just take it home to eat. It's such a simple concept, that is quite tasty too.

Balanced Rock Winery

Just outside the exit to Devil's Lake state park, is a cute winery on a bit of a hill, Balanced Rock Winery. One thing that cracks me up, is that they have a driving range on their property. So if you like golf, you're set! Plus they are dog friendly with a large patio with live music to really take some time to chill for the day while getting some good food and drink.

There were a few options for wine. Do a tasting at the bar, or a flight or a glass could be take to a table, as well as you can order food to go with your wine. We opted to each get a flight and share (there were exactly 6 sweeter wine and a flight was 3 wines, so we were set!). We each ordered a different nacho plate, I don't know if we were that hungry or the food was that good. Once our food arrived, we totally forgot about the wine and went into heffer mode, just chowing down on our food. The salsa was nice and thick and not too spicy, plus I was excited they had black olives on the nachos. You don't see that too often most places. So I stole the olives off my husbands plate. Really the food was great, the wine was tasty, and the ambiance was lively and not too serious, but still a nice setting. 

I give them 5 dragonflies. For a winery to have such a good food display was rare and very inviting. The inside it super cute and makes a great stand alone option to hang out, but in nice weather, the back and side patio, totally pump it up a notch on cuteness. Plus the scenery was so nice and in the fall would be even prettier. 

Tumbled Rock Brewing

Not far outside Starved Rock in Baraboo WI is a tasty brewery - Tumbled Rock Brewing. We found them on a previous trip to go hiking and really enjoyed the food we got. I had gotten the steak tip appetizer (Sans the crostini) and the elote salad. I was expecting a 'normal'serving size for the elote and was shocked at the large portion. I couldn't finish it even with help from my husband, who had gotten a pizza because they have a giant pizza oven, and seems to be their specialty item.

As we were heading back up this way after doing a few hikes, I suggested we stop there for a late lunch get a beverage and some appetizers. We opted to get a few appetizers to share. One thing to note on their menu is anything that is marked GF that is fried, IS in a Shared fryer. Which annoys me when places do this, but I knew to ignore these items. Our server was very engaged an able to punch in 'allergy' & 'gluten free' notes on the items we ordered and she went back and talk to the kitchen to make sure they saw the note. Since the steak tips should have crostini, the server offered to bring us a plate of tortilla chips to go with our food instead. My husband loved the tortilla chips and we took the extras with us to munch on later.

Our meal was fabulous and the rain held off so we had a nice meal on their patio. I give them 4 dragonflies because they have a bunch of options that are GF, and they are tasty. Do keep note that they have a shared fryer for GF items that are fried. So keep that in mind when ordering off the menu. I wish they wouldn't mark those items, as it can be confusing when ordering, to know what really are safe options. Otherwise they seem knowledgeable and diligent with the food on all orders. 

Bit of a Rant On Eating Out

To quote Einstein - Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

 

Having a food allergy or intolerance can seem daunting, because you can never let down your guard. We are very cautious on where we eat out and pick places that have better handling and knowledge of things. But that doesn’t always mean that it works that nicely.

 

We have a great local place that we love, but we are now on strike 3 of getting a meal that we trust, when we get takeout. Dining in is fine, but any to go meal there is an issue.  I got asked, “why do you go back” – We’ll it’s hard to find good options of different foods, so where do you compromise?

 

Doing take out during Covid, and poor service from restaurants has made us extra meticulous at checking our order before we leave. Every Single Time! Because nothing irks me even more than getting home and not having food that I can eat!

 

Our last visit, to a place we love, we checked the food, and noticed my husband’s plate wasn’t what he wanted, but he said it was fine, it was something he liked. My meal looked fine; our shared plate looked fine. When we got to our destination, and I took a bite of our shared plate I could tell right away, it wasn’t what we ordered. My heart sank, and panic set in. How could we be duped for the 3^rd time. After spitting out my food and trying to not cry, my husband walked up and asked what was wrong. I showed him and he started to fume. Some back and forth we decided to hold off either of us eating anymore and stop at the restaurant on the way home to show them the issue and ask for a refund.  

 

Upon walking in and telling them, they assured me the meal was gluten free, but they could see I was still not happy. They did make a new plate for us and had their co-owner who is also Celiac come out and talk to us. She kept saying it wasn’t their fault, their vendor who makes the gluten free items, makes only gluten free items one day of the week. So while the filling in the product was wrong, it was still gluten free. I kept emphasizing to her how this is still an issue, cause it causes concern if we got the wrong order, (Has happen there before, or it's the Non-GF version). On a previous trip we were confused because we ordered different flavors of items, but my husband ended up being given the same flavors as me, but Not Gluten free. Again, we started to freakout how to tell the difference and make sure I got the right food.

 

We chatted on how hard it is to get good help that is able to make sure they’re doing a consistently good job. How awful is that, that people handling food, just don’t care! I'd be less annoyed if they didn't have a sign hanging by the register how all meals are checked by a food safety manager trained in allergies. Yet I'm annoyed, trust broken, and telling myself I'm OK cause my instincts were right stop eating when something was wrong, but still annoyed we had such a hassle and extra drama to deal with. We've called about issues in the past, and been refunded, as they were closing and couldn't get replacement meal in time. Knowing that they have had issues in the past, you'd think as someone with Celiac owning the place, they would work to be better, over all. But It may be too much to ask for these days.

 

Rant over for now. But I'm sure there will be a follow rant on the same topic soon, sadly.

Riccardo's - Italian Stop

I will randomly just scroll thru Find Me Gluten Free, just to see if something new, different, or interesting gets posted. I get excited when something different pops up, just cause it's nice to go somewhere new, try something else, and not eat the same things. Riccardo's popped up recently, and I realize I go to the grocery store right across the street once a week! 

We decided to take the family and check it out. It's set back and not the easiest to find if you're not looking for it. The inside reminded me of a family run dinner style from the early 1990's. The gluten free menu is not huge by any means, but they have some great options like ravioli, mostaccioli, and different chicken dishes. My favorite part is they serve the Udi's rolls as an option for gluten free! It's $1 a roll and they will ask how many rolls you want. 

They have 1 soup option that is safe, the minestrone soup. What kills me is they only have the house vinegar dressing for the salad option. Which I just don't understand 75% if not more of dressings bought in store are safe, but the moment you eat out, NONE are an option! Ugh! Though they do have a couple gluten free dessert options which is awesome. I still get hung up on the salad dressing, like how hard is it to have a safe dressing that doesn't taste like it would be a cleaning solution!

Their lack of a good tasting dressing makes me rate them down to 4 dragonflies, they have options, if you're in the mood for them, the GF menu is much smaller than the regular menu, but it's a good option to meet up for a special event or a group dinner that's not too pricey.

Rokbonki - Hibachi Happiness

I've written before on the good experiences I've had at Benihana, and how each location handles allergies differently, from cooking the allergy meal first, to making it in the back and bringing it out plated, but never had a bad experience. Last year a friend mentioned an independent hibachi restaurant that he loves, and has been going to for many years. He kept bringing up taking us there to try it, cause he was certain we'd love it more than Benihana, so we made plans to check it out. I gave him my spiel on food prep and eating there. He called and talked to them and they determined that I would be able to eat most of the meal. Most because they do a course of hibachi noodles with the meal, and that would not be able to be adjusted. 

So we made reservations at Rokbonki and hoped for the best. I was pleased when I mentioned to our waitress that my meal had to be made gluten free, and she understood what needed to be done and helped guide our meal accordingly. It turned out the salad dressing was not safe, nor the soup, but a plain salad was an option. The teriyaki noodles were a no go, as well as the dipping sauces. But the rest was going to be fine. We had a fabulous meal, the hibachi chef opted to make my meal before the rest, of the people at the table. All was going well, and he had a misstep, I thought he grabbed the wrong bottle, and he realized it just as quickly. He apologized, and flagged down a server to get him a new steak and mushrooms and gave my original cut of meat to everyone else at the table and started over at making my portion of steak. Every part of the meal was fabulous and my husband who hates salad could not stop raving about the salad dressing.   

We recently had our 3rd visit, each the 2nd and 3rd time the chef was chatty with me about my allergy, how long I've known about my issues and how it impacts my life. Each time he was super cautious and I even learned I could have the egg sauce (Tokyo style shrimp) as that is gluten free, though their garlic topping is not, because it has breadcrumbs. I was so glad they went and asked all the questions and the chef at our table was super informed. He was so nice to explain that the scallops are dusted in corn starch (not flour) to keep them crispy when frying. I also asked for 2 sides of rice, since the teriyaki noodles are not gluten free, and I was hungry.

 

The 2nd time we went, I felt bad, since we only had half our table to our party, the other party was 2/3rd vegetarian. I don't think they were totally understanding the chef trying to keep the gluten free and vegetarian separate and prepped at opposite ends before the regular options. But he still did a great job at it. My husband and I are always alert watching the movement to make sure they don't grab a wrong bottle or switch a utensil. Finding a 2nd Hibachi restaurant that handles allergies quite well makes me feel better about this type of food option. Knowing that it all about the training and staff awareness anywhere you go, here it's top notch. 

I give them 5 dragonflies for service, personal handling and amazing tasting food.

Nachorita - Nacho Night Out

Being Gluten Free we feel like we find the most random places that we otherwise may not have noticed. While looking for something different to bring with to a BYOF (Bring your own food), brewery, we found Nachorita. Their gimmick is they server nachos in a pizza box. Brilliant idea, instead of a tall mound of chips, it's a flat layer spread out to fit in a pizza box, so almost every chip is covered with toppings! 

We've been here  a couple times. The pizza box nachos and the bowls are gluten free. As expected the regular burritos are not. They make each tray of nachos on parchment paper that will go into the box once toasted. They have the usual variety of meats and toppings, with a rotation of seasonal salsas. They come in two sizes 10" Box or a 12" Box. The 12" box is perfect for sharing and you can go as crazy or mild as you want with salsa and toppings. With all the traditional bases, beans, meats, fajita veggies, and topping like tomatoes, jalapenos, lettuce, queso and guacamole, and several drizzles. My husband goes very basic, while I filler my box up! It's all about customization, and they can do that!

You can eat on site, with a few inside tables and a few patio seats, or you can take your nachos to go. We've always taken our Nachos to go and eaten them at a different brewery each time. (Afterthought Brewing, Lunar and Pollyanna, all of which have seltzers, wine or ciders which are gluten free.).

Over all we LOVE the concept of the pizza box nachos and love the options for toppings. You watch your food go down the line, like Chipotle and can see your food handled. 

They're great with understanding gluten free and are provide a great finished product! 5 dragonflies in both mine and my husbands books!

Restaurants are only as good as their service

I don’t know what it is, but I feel like “Service” is really fleeting as of late. I remember going to a restaurant and having GOOD service, you would actually talk about how good the service was. Now I feel you’re lucky if your server cares you’re there, let alone getting your order right! We have a couple places we go “regularly” because they do offer a good selection of Gluten Free options and they’re pretty good at making sure things are correct. The one we laugh that if we get a server more than twice they might actually stick around for more than a month. The other we laughed that we’ve never had a repeat server, but based on the last few visits there, it’s not shocking anymore!

My husband was telling his friend about our dinner out with his family from the other day. When I started laughing I had to explain that his breakdown of the issues was everything I outlined to write in this post as my red flags to know this meal was going to go downhill fast.

1^st – The server was so overly social and wanted to chat it up with us on everything but our meal. I wanted to tell him to stop hitting on my sister-in-law, that she is married but her husband was busy, that’s why he’s not there, stop chatting her up, and worry about our order. (The last time a server gluten'd me she was obsessed with my nail art and kept talking about my makeup. - Again totally distracted)

2^nd – The server stood at the far end of a longer table, by the kids (Ages 4 & 7) to take our orders. All the adults who were ordering food were at the other end, at least walk half way around the table to talk to us! So we had to shout our orders over our table; annoying and rude. 

3^rd – My husband didn’t order his food gluten free. Sounds dumb, but we get 75% better results if we order 2 gluten free meals, versus just one. Though it makes him that person I hate, He’ll order a regular beer, or eat the table bread, but order his meal gluten free. But he’ll tell the server “I’m ordering gluten free so she can try my meal too”. That they seem to understand, but honestly my food comes out correctly more often then.

4^th – He kept repeating the order back to us, cause it was confusing. When really he was too busy enamoring the fact that a 4 & 7 year old like shrimp. On the 4^th repetition of us telling him our order, he said he had it. He didn’t.

5^th – He got our drink order wrong, cause he couldn’t hear what I ordered from the other end of the table. You’d have thought that would have prompted him to come closer when asking for the food order. A minor detail, but it should have been our tell on how the rest of the meal would go downhill.

We don’t know if he didn’t put my food order in, or if he didn’t tell them gluten free, but everyone got their food, but me. Then he stared at me stupidly. When he finally had my food, when everyone else was pretty much done he started to ramble how “They first made it without gluten, then had to make it with gluten, and that they didn’t do it right, so they redid it.” Great you’re clueless!!

Our reservation was for 6:45, it was already 8:00 at this point, it had taken an hour to get food, the kids were getting cranky and we still had to run errands, so I ended up taking my food to go, and eating it the next day. He came over and offered to comp the meal, which was appreciated but not necessary, but the manger did not come over, no one else came to give us a legit explanation, just his rambling of not knowing why we were angry.

You may notice, I haven’t mentioned the name of the restaurant we dined at. Well that’s on purpose, cause the place we dined at is well known for their attentive, amazing gluten free options and support of the community. Again, only as good as the staff and the training they receive. We try to leave our small comfort zone and try new places, but then we deal with this, and this is from a place that touts how great they are for gluten free dining. So if a place that says they’re a great place to eat if you have food allergies, cannot train their staff how to handle allergies, how are we to trust any other place?

Canyon Bakehouse Bagels

Some days you need to just savor the little things in life. I keep hearing how great Canyon Bakehouse Bagels are, and finding them near me is IMPOSSIBLE. I could buy directly from Canyon Bakehouse, but our tiny refrigerator, in our rented townhouse doesn't hold much for frozen food, and honestly it takes us a long time to use bread. I pretty much cut bread out after going gluten free. So ordering 1 pack of bagels and paying $11.00 in shipping is not logical to me. So when I went Halloween shopping with my brother and while walking up and down, aimlessly in Walmart and found Canyon Bakehouse Bagels on a random endcap, in the back of the store, I freaked out. 

After obsessing for 15 minutes how I wanted a bagel with cream cheese, I was told to go get the darn bagels and buy them, NOW! I kept trying to decide if 4 bagels were worth it for the cost, since gluten free is not cheap. But I decided to give in and do it, you only live once, right?? The next two days I toasted a bagel and took it to work and added cream cheese. It was heavenly. You forget how easy it is to miss something this simple. 

Saturday I decided to make Bacon, Bagel, Egg & Cheese breakfast sandwiches. They were delicious. Even though I kinda burnt the bagels they were really good. I didn't believe my non-gf hubby how good they were until Sunday morning when he asked "Can we have more breakfast bagels this morning?" I told him No, we ate all the bagels! I'd have to go to Walmart and hope they have more! So what am I doing tonight? Going to Walmart to find Canyon Bakehouse Bagels so we can have more bagel, egg, bacon & cheese sandwiches this weekend! 

You don't realize how the littlest, simplest things are the easiest to take for granted. Fingers crossed I might find the Canyon Bakehouse English muffins too! Though I do enjoy the Glutino ones when I need a burger bun, or I have an English muffin craving. 

Honeymoon - 9 Days on the go, Gluten Free

Traveling Gluten free for 9 days, while staying at a different place each night makes for an interesting trip. You can’t always rely on Find Me Gluten Free, as I had no service for portions of the trip, even with 3 providers between the two of us we were in total cellular dead zones, so some preplanning is necessary when traveling. We did 9 days of mostly eating out and eating junk food with no stomach issues and only 1 dicey hotel stay! I’d say over all it was a successful trip. I couldn’t have imagined how pretty the coast of California is, and honestly we could have spent even more time on the coast in California but we wanted to get to Seattle. We had to omit Portland, sadly I didn’t get to Ground Breaker Brewery, but I know where to order their beer! We did however make it to Ghostfish which was pretty awesome.

The first 3 days were intertwined with my New Hubbies family since we were in Los Angeles for his cousins wedding. After flying in we went to his aunt’s house for dinner. We were pleasantly greeted with 2 frozen Saffron Road Entrees! 

We laughed, most people would be annoyed to go to someone’s house for dinner and be handed frozen entrees. I was thrilled cause I didn’t want to insult her that I was apprehensive to eat something not knowing how she prepped it. She was quite proud of her accomplishment to find me safe food. We hit up Target to get ourselves some snacks for the trip and hit the hay. It had been a long day of work, travel and family. We got up Saturday and looked thru the app and saw a place in Agoura Hills, Hugo’s. Looking at reviews there were so many options and everything is made from scratch and farm to table. The menu was overwhelming. There were so many options. I wanted to get the French toast but was worried about CC since my hubbie got the Green Tamales and eggs, which were marked (GF) but the server said it wasn’t Gf… I got the Desayuno Fuerte. – I learned I like Poached Eggs. We had turned off highways on the GPS so we took a wonderful drive thru some beautiful canyons and mountains. The wedding we were going to was a generic buffet so I was glad I brought some Kind Bars to hold me over while enjoying some cocktails and mingling and meeting more of his family. We did make a mandatory In-N-Out Burger run on the way back to the hotel. As we walked out we looked at each other and went “In-N-Out?” Love when he reads my mind! My Protein Style burger and cheese fries totally hit the spot! 

Sunday we hit up “The coffee Bean and Tea Leaf” for some morning coffee before heading to his cousins house for a surprise party. The same aunt who got the frozen entrees the first night in town made sure to drop off some frozen GF entrees for me again! (She’s too sweet!!) I’d brought some snacks, not sure what was being served. She was worried about us being away from home and not knowing where grocery stores were, I was set! We ducked out a bit early from the party to start our trip up the coast, but not before taking lots of family photos! We made it to Santa Barbara before sunset and looked up some options on FMGF. The Hoffman Brat House looked tasty so we ventured over there. The menu looked good and they had Gluten Free Fried Pickles, Gluten Free Corndog nuggets listed. Upon talking to the server they don’t have a dedicated fryer….. Ugh. I questioned it after we sat down and were waiting for him to come over cause a reviewer said she had opted to NOT get the fries when she found out the fryer had been cross used so it wasn’t safe that day. So I asked and he inquired and told us “no we don’t have any dedicated fryers.” Thanks FMGF, and crappy reviewers. At least there were still options on the menu since it was getting late, we’d already ordered drinks and man was it cold out that night! We got some bacon wrapped dates, (Not marked GF but verified gf) and a brat on a GF bun and a side of pickles. Cute town, good food, bustling despite the cold weather. That rounded out the first weekend for our trip.

Bacon Wrapped Dates, Sign me up!

Gluten Free Brat on a bun and pickles - Yum!