Beer and Olive Garden

Wow a lot of gluten free happenings in the last week. Where to start... Brian and I plus 2 other couples (the girls are both my friends) decided to have a dinner party last weekend. Basically it was so we could meet each others boyfriend/husband that we always talk about so much. We made sushi. A good thing to make for a group of people. But the gluten free part of this was I bought the raspberry beer I mentioned earlier in the summer. New Planet 3R Raspberry Ale My GF friend and I split the large bottle. It was okay..... as my boyfriend said, it doesn't taste like beer but it's good. It's very light and I think if I was a beer drinker I would like dark beers. So I won't buy that again. Sticking to cider and wine.

I tried a new restaurant. I wasn't planning on it but I went back to my college town to visit a friend for the weekend and her sister and her friends were visiting also. So we were deciding where to go to dinner and they all screamed Olive Garden! I was like shoot I don't think I've EVER been there. There isn't one in my home town and during college I didn't eat out much. Then I was like SHOOT what I am going to eat. Thinking I could just get a burger or some other kind of meat.... I then remembered that Olive Garden has gluten free food! So I looked up the menu online and sure enough they about about 8 items. Now I wasn't expecting much from a huge chain restaurant like that with the cross contamination issue and such. We went and I asked the waiter about their cooking procedures (DeAnna would be proud) He was like "well yeah you have to cook the food in the separate stuff because it's an allergy" I was like CORRECT. But he went back and checked with the cooks to be sure. He said the food was so I felt better. They only had 1 dish of pasta and it had veggie sauce. The rest were meat dishes. Which is kind of weird because I can get a meat sauce at Maggianos..... That tells you the meat they put in the pasta isn't very pure.... The pasta and sauce were ok. Nothing special. I didn't feel sick so that's always a plus. But nice because all of the other people in the group could get something good. I guess sometimes I just have to take one for the team! So I wouldn't go there just for the gluten free pasta but not a bad place to eat if other people want to go there.

Ok well I have two more things to blog about but it's getting late. Look for the posts this week!

Eating Out

It was my boyfriend's graduation this weekend and his family came to Denver to celebrate. Needless to say, we ate out a lot. I find it so interesting how wait staff responds to food allergies. I have two examples.

Example #1: One night we had dinner at Maggiano's. Now, Maggianos is on my list of good gluten free restaurants to eat at. Yes, I have a running list and some places don't make it. Maggiano's does have a "reservations necessary" clause though because their waits are outrageous. So when we went there last week we were informed their menu had changed. There used to be 2 sizes of pasta, half and full. Now they only have one size and they "send some home with you". What a business plan. I have never heard of that! So weird! Guess they want you to keep thinking about Maggiano's even after you leave.... They even offered to give us a different kind to take home. So we got the food and of course the size was smaller. Kind of lame. Another problem we came across was is we told the waiter that we needed a gluten dairy free dish. He responded with "Is this an allergy or a preference?" UH it doesn't matter! You should do the best you can to serve what the customer requests! That was disappointing. Finally, we received our pasta only to find out they changed the kind of pasta. The old one was really yummy and the new one is not. And my boyfriend and I's stomach were not to happy after. Magganio's you are officially OFF my list!

Example #2: My boyfriend, his dad and I were up at Blackhawk, a gambling town outside of Denver. It became dinner time so we looked at the menu at the current casino we were in. They had a few things I could eat. A salad, hamburger and salmon. This was kind of dive place. Cafe style, nothing fancy. I ordered the salmon with a baked potato and veggies. I explained I am allergic to gluten and dairy so no butter or breadcrumbs on the food. (I like to give examples for clarity) The waitress came back two times to clarify things about my order. The cook even suggested to steam the veggies instead of sauteing them. The meal turned out really well and I felt fine after!

Now let's compare and contrast these two examples. One high end restaurant and advertises their gluten free meals and one dive cafe. The cafe was better than the high end restaurant?! Yes it was. Who knew!