Our friends and family don't always understand why eating out is such a major event for us though, so I'm forever going through my schpeel of why cross-contamination risks are so high at a restaurant, and how I have to be careful about everything.
I often find myself googling restaurants before we go out to see if they have a gluten free menu, or if anyone has ever posted anything about their gluten free options, so I thought I may as well start sharing my experiences too.
This Sunday, after the hubs' hockey game, a bunch of us went out to eat after the game.
We headed off to the nearby Original Joe's bar
I asked the hostess if they had a gluten free menu. Nope. But she pointed out their salads, and soups.
Ok, I figured I'd go with the greek salad - low risk for cross-contamination there...or so I thought.
I made sure to tell the waitress that I couldn't have any bread or croutons or anything on the salad - I didn't want to take the chance on someone adding croutons to it, or throwing a piece of bread on top, and me having to suck it up (re: pay for food I wouldn't eat) since I didn't say anything.
Well I got a good ten bites into the salad (it was a really big salad - I don't think I even made a dent in it), when I uncovered something.
A green one of these:
Oh great. This is just the thing a celiac girl does not want to encounter!
As soon as hubs heard me sigh, he knew something was wrong with my salad.
A friend called the waitress over right away; I told her calmly that the salad had pasta in it, and that I would get very, very sick if I ate it. She offered another salad, I politely declined. They took my salad off the bill.
The thing that was so disturbing about this experience was that the restaurant was really dark - and my salad had a lot of green in it. I very, very easily could have eaten that rogue piece of pasta. Which would have sent my stomach into a rogue state of it's own.
I don't know if I'll ever try and eat at Original Joe's again. It worries me that their salad ingredients are obviously so close together that different sides get mixed with one another - I remember frequently finding a piece of pasta in my side caesar salad from there when I used to be able to eat anything... I only remembered that right now though.... So, next time I'll stick with the diet coke.
BUT, if you CAN eat gluten, then I highly recommend the Double Dog from OJ's. It's one of the greatest hot dogs I've ever had - and they make some mean fries!
