Looking back over my posts, I realised that I said I’d talk about the restaurants we go to when we chose to eat away from home, rather than me just cooking homemade copies of the commercial stuff. This has fallen by the wayside for a couple of reasons:
1. There hasn’t been anywhere new I wanted to try out
2. I forgot
We’re lucky in Berkshire to have quite a wide variety of restaurants on offer, and they are gradually becoming more “Real Food” focussed. Independent coffee shops, organic juices – we’re almost catching up with London!
While many main-stream restaurants have caught on to the gluten-free bandwagon sadly many are still relying on corn, rice and a LOT of sugar. I’m fortunate not to have life threatening allergies, so I can eat a little of these substances and not feel too bad. In larger quantities I suffer the next day. This my current pick of Paleo-friendly dinner venues:
Jamie’s Italian – I so wanted to hate it, but it was actually very good.
Carluccio’s is my favourite for a special dinner. Not all that expensive, but the antipasti plates are too gorgeous to resist so it always ends up being a big dinner. Real Italian food that goes beyond pizza and pasta.
Loch Fyne has always been a go-to spot. While they don’t have a gluten-free menu, many of their main courses are served as- is and you choose sides seperately, so you can enjoy broccoli, salad or samphire with your meal. Also, you can’t go wrong with a plate of oysters or a lobster platter and a glass of something chilled and fizzy 😉 [unless you have a seafood allergy, then you’re buggered]
Mission Burrito – no GF menu but offers the option of having all the usual taco and burrito toppings on a crunchy salad. Made to order so just ask for no beans, and no cheese if you’re hard-core. This place gives Chipotle in the US a run for it’s money!
Las Iguanas is a new favourite. I had assumed this was another tex-mex, nachos and deep fried breaded food place. I was sooo wrong. Not being of Latin American decent I have no idea how authentic it is, but their Brasillian inspired food is unusual and delicious. It’s not often I go to a restaurant in the UK and don’t know what things on the menu are. The GF menu is pretty big (although a lot of it does include rice, corn and beans) but the real winner here is their taco sharing plate which comes with gem lettuce cups instead of tortillas. Yum! They also do sweet potato fries, cassava fries and plantain chips, but they’re not marked as GF which suggests they’ve been coated in something to help crisp them up 🙁
There are, of course, other places where you can ask for substitutions to which they may or may not acquiesce – but we’re British and don’t like to have to ask.