Archive for Pennsylvania

Drafting Room – A Nacho’riffic Experience

November 27, 2007 at 3:37 pm · Filed under Pennsylvania, Restaurants, Restaurants (Local)

The Drafting Room – Spring House
900 N. Bethlehem Pike
Spring House, Pennsylvania 19477
phone: 215-646-6116
http://draftingroom.com/spring_house/sh_home.html

 Drafting Room is a nice local restaurant/bar for your beer enthusiasts. Obviously, as a Celiac, those beers are a no no (they don’t carry any GF beer to date) – but who knows what the future holds. My friends and I like to frequent the bar side on Tuesday nights to enjoy Pub Trivia. While none of the appetizers are gluten free as displayed on the menu, I can bring in my own sealed bag of tortilla chips and they will make the nachos for me (with all the cheese and fixin’s) using my chips.  I’ve never had a problem with them and I’ve had those nachos about a dozen times now. The waitresses are more than happy to work with you on food allergies (wonderful upbeat attitude), but be cautious about everything here. The first time I was ordering I was told she could make the nacho’s gluten free but it would take longer than a regular order of nachos. When I asked for clarification cause I couldn’t understand why – it turns out they were going to pick out all the wheat chips out of the wheat/corn mix. Obviously for anybody with a severe wheat/gluten allergy that’s a big no no. I made sure she realized that it would still make me sick, and that’s when she suggested to bring my own. There’s a Wawa right down the street, so just make a side stop and grab a bag!

I think some of the meals would be gluten free, you just need to work with them.

 They also have Woodchuck – Granny Smith in bottle form for those who are over 21 :)

 Note: This is only for the Spring House branch. I’ve never been to the Exton branch. 

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Bliss – not exactly Bliss, but getting there!

October 17, 2007 at 12:41 pm · Filed under Pennsylvania, Restaurants (Local)

Bliss
224 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
http://www.bliss-restaurant.com/ 

This weekend I had the pleasure of trying out Bliss. A restaurant that was mentioned in the local paper for being very accomodating of Gluten Free needs.

All in all, it was a very pleasant experience. Located on the Avenue of the Arts, Bliss definitely takes the cake on ambiance. The waiter was very friendly and checked on each item for me that I asked about.

For starters, I had the cucumber soup which was rather good. It was very creamy and rather heavy – but had a very yummy taste.

I then enquired about the pistacio crusted salmon and if I couldn’t have that, I wanted the crispy ginger chicken. Well, the waiter came back and briefly informed me I’d be having the salmon without the crust. Which after a minute took me aback cause the reason I wanted the salmon was Because of the pistacio crust. Well, I dealt – the salmon (while pistacio’less) was still pretty tasty.

For dessert my friend and I shared the vanilla creme brulee. After reporting it was gluten free, it came out with a nice piece of biscotti overtop the creme brulee, so you have to make sure to remind them.

It was a little pricey I thought for the food offered (tax and tip, it came to $50). I think I’d rather go to Pod or Buddakon for those prices. But it was still a nice experience and I think a lot of other people would like it.

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Uno’s Chicago Grill – Proceed with Caution

August 3, 2007 at 11:48 am · Filed under Pennsylvania, Restaurants (Chain)

Uno’s Chicago Grill

Ridge Pike
Conshohocken, PA

http://www.unos.com/kiosk/nutritionUnos.html

This is another chain that can now boast a gluten free menu (which is wonderful news!). I must send out a huge warning though to not let your guard down.

I went to Uno’s one Saturday night and was upset to find two people in a row had no idea what the Gluten Free menu was and had to search it down. Once they were able to find it, I had a bit of a hard time understanding the menu itself. I found myself interested in the BBQ Grilled Shrimp and I noticed on the GF menu it read “BBQ Grilled Shrimp and two sides”.  However on the regular menu it is described as BBQ grilled shrimp served over rice with a side of steamed vegetables. One thing to note is that the rice is not on the GF side options. So I’m fairly certain the rice is not GF, but there was no explicit note on the GF menu to avoid the rice when ordering the BBQ Grilled Shrimp (like the Outback menu does).

The food was rather greasy, but I’ve come to expect that from Uno’s. The taste was definitely good. They will identify gluten free items for you, but you do need to explain to the wait staff (you can’t count on them knowing beforehand). If you’re very cautious about how you order, you should do well here!

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Jules Thin Crust Pizza – YUM!

May 31, 2007 at 2:13 pm · Filed under Pennsylvania, Restaurants (Local)

Jules Thin Crust
78 South Main Street
Doylestown, PA
http://julesthincrust.com 

New location in Newtown, PA opening in October ‘07
(Edit 7/17/07): New location in Flemington, NJ opening in July ‘08.  

Last weekend, my boy and I took the 30 minute one way trek to get me pizza – and boy was it worth it!

We’d gone before, and I got some fancy topping gluten free pizza. It was a veggie pizza with arugula, mozzerella, garlic, tomatoes, and some other stuff. I wasn’t a huge fan of the chunks of mozzerella, so I spent a considerable amount of time picking them off and putting them on a plate where my boy then put them on his glutinous pizza.
This time, however, I got a plain GF pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and green peppers. Let me tell you YUM. While I couldn’t finish a medium pizza (the only size you can get GF) by myself, I made a sizable dent into it.

The crust is thin (as the name of the pizzaria suggests) and crispy and delicious. The only downside is it does cost a pretty penny. One GF medium pizza, one large regular pizza and two sodas cost over $40 (wowzers!). But we both had leftovers that reheated very well in the oven (directions on the bottom of the To-Go box) so really it counted as two meals.

They also offer frozen dough to take home for $6 that you defrost an hour before baking then roll out to the medium pizza side. I bought two, but have yet to try and make them so I’ll keep you posted on how they turn out.

As a dessert treat, they offer some prepackaged GF Good Eatz baked goods – such as cookies, brownies, and rice crispy treats. I tried the Chocolate Chip cookies and the brownies and I enjoyed the brownie more.

I wish I was closer to this place and I would probably be a regular patron. As is, it is an every couple month treat :)

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Champps – Disappointment

May 22, 2007 at 12:38 pm · Filed under Pennsylvania, Restaurants (Chain)

Champps Americana
King of Prussia Mall
www.champps.com/
 

To be honest, after the ordering process in Champps, I was ready to cry. For one, it took asking my waiter twice and then asking another waiter to get the manager to the table. Then, trying to find something I could have that I’d want felt like beating my head against the wall.
Yes, the nacho chips are corn, but they are fried in with breaded stuff. The potato skins and fries too. Everything is done ahead of time and they are unable to fry anything in clean oil.
Apparently there was a waitress there who also had Celiac and they assured me she had the buffalo wings without having a reaction. To which I was a little indignant (as any semi-careful Celiac would be) and responded that people have different tolerances and I’d need more assurance than that. The waitress who was Celiac finally came over to let me know I could definitely have the buffalo wings just double baked instead of baked then fried. She also informed me that I could have any of the more expensive meals (well duh, they’re all steaks and the like!)
Also important to note – their mashed potatoes have flour in them. Stay away!

Needless to say, this is one of the restaurants I will be avoiding from now on. The mudslide I had (as we were there for happy hour/light food) wasn’t even that good. But I have had better mudslides from Champps, so they could have just been sub-par that day.

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Bahama Breeze – Call Ahead

May 8, 2007 at 7:28 pm · Filed under New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Restaurants (Chain)

Bahama Breeze
King of Prussia Mall
http://bahamabreeze.com/

I went to Bahama Breeze twice – the first time I called ahead and the second time I didn’t, and I feel like it made a huge difference.

The first time I called ahead and talked to the head chef. I explained my food allergies and he let me know it would be no problem accomodating. Just let the waitress know what I was allergic to, pick a couple menu items, and he would make what he could for me. So I went and had some delicious chicken kabobs. (I didn’t have any sort of reaction afterwards)

About 5 months later, I went back for the same delicious kabobs. When talking to the waitress and explaining the food allergies, she went back to the chef and then came back saying they wouldn’t feel comfortable serving that to me and the only thing I could have would be the shrimp appetizer (without the bread), and the fresh fish entree’s, but only with simple seasonings. I got the Mahi Mahi simply grilled and it was just that – simple. It didn’t taste bad per-say it just didn’t really taste. I think the best part of my second trip to Bahama Breeze was the super tasty drinks. If you like the fruity drinks, this is the place to go. I’m tempted to call ahead again and speak to a chef about GF menu items as it may work better.  

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Maggiano’s Little Italy – A+ experience!

May 6, 2007 at 5:43 pm · Filed under Pennsylvania, Restaurants (Chain)

Maggiano’s Little Italy
205 Mall Blvd, King of Prussia, PA
maggianos.com

After a quick phone call to Maggiano’s to confirm the internet rumor that they do indeed have rice pasta, my boyfriend and I ventured out for an Italian dinner (which we don’t usually get to enjoy out). We showed up and felt worried at first about what we were wearing – sporting the collared shirts and jeans, but it turned out to not be super dressy inside. I wouldn’t wear cutoff pants, but its not exactly fancy clothing.

While there was no seperate Gluten Free menu, there was a special note that Gluten Free pasta was available upon request immediately underneath the pasta section. I settled on the Chicken Cachatoire that had a side of pasta with it. I spoke to the waitress when she came to our table and asked her if it could be made Gluten Free for me. I also inquired about the soups. She went back and talked to the chef and came back with the verdict: the chicken cachatoire  ‘could’ be made gluten free (it wasn’t naturally so) and the soup was not GF. Fair enough, since I usually can’t have soup anywhere.

The meal itself was delicious. It was a large portion of chicken in a red sauce with mushrooms and peppers and onions (although not heavy on the onions, which made me happy). There were spiral rice noodles on the side with a slight butter sauce. The noodles didn’t really do anything for me, I felt they easily could have been replaced with rice for the same taste. They also weren’t my favorite GF noodles in the world. However as a whole the meal made me very happy.

When the waitress asked about dessert, we asked her to see what she could find that was gluten free. Imagine our surprise when the Sous Chef came out with a plate of GF cookies! They aren’t on the menu yet, but he is looking to get them on there sometime soon. He mentioned he has been able to adapt most menu items with the GF noodles, even making a lasagna for one woman! I know what I’m getting the next time I go! Of course, it is lasagna made with the spiral noodles done in layers, but beggers can’t be choosers. He was VERY friendly and we talked a bit about baking with GF flour. It was a good thing he gave us an even number of cookies, or else my boyfriend and I would have fought over the last one – they were that tasty!

The meal wasn’t too expensive (the meals range from $12-18 per person, not including salads or soups or drinks. My chicken was $15). If you really go for the full soup, salad, alchoholic drinks, and meal it could add up – but you can keep it reasonable if you want.

I know I’m hoping to go back soon – I had a great time and felt confident in the kitchen being able to handle everything.

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