I had a fantastic night out with a friend last night.  She was good enough to schlep through the rain with me so we could get to a restaurant I wanted to go to that is well-known to be very Gluten-Free friendly. It was wonderful, both the company and the experience. She’s one of those friends that I always have a good time with, so that was a given, but I fully enjoyed the meal as well – and I went in there very cynical.
When I asked the waiter if there was a separate, gluten-free menu, he excited brought on to me. Basically, they created the physical gluten-free menu from the items on their regular menu that were gluten-free so customers and waitstaff didn’t have to weed through the whole menu to figure out what was GF. The menu was surprisingly full of appetizers, main courses and desserts.
I started off with a gluten-free dinner roll. I’m kicking myself for not taking any photos of my food last night but I was having too much fun to stop for photos of the food. No matter…the food was great. The dinner roll looked like the infant child of my friend’s gluten dinner roll. It was adorable. Which helps the brain convince itself that what you’re going to eat has to be good because it’s so cute! It, along with the garlic butter, was very tasty.
One of the best parts of the dinner last night was feeling secure that the restaurant and its staff were serious about my dietary needs. I didn’t worry once that anything I ate would have gluten in it. (I’m new to this…even though I’ve researched it thoroughly, I still get worried.)
Because I specifically went to Burtons Grill to taste a gluten-free hamburger bun (my experiences with GF bread have, thus far, not been good), I ordered the cheeseburger with onions and a side cucumber salad. All I had on the burger was yellow mustard and, really, it was so, so good. I’m sure it was more because the beef was cooked so perfectly that I enjoyed everything about it…but, really, the bun tasted like any other hamburger bun to me…and that’s all I was looking for.
Drank red wine all night…which was nice and not any kind of a sacrifice since I’m a red wine type of gal. As the evening wore on, it became clear that, as nice as our waiter was, it would probably please him if we ordered a dessert. So taking a glance, again, at the GF dessert menu, I decide on the Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee.
I swiped the above photo from Burtons website (again, because I didn’t think to take photos!). The photo is exactly what my dessert looked like…and it was heavenly. Honestly, I think I dreamed about it last night.
This was the first time I ate out and made sure it was gluten-free. I look forward to more trips like this one!
Unrelated to my wonderful evening: I heard back from my doctor today who told me my test for Celiac was messed up because the lab “didn’t take enough blood”. So I need to go back and get another blood test. (This will be four different blood tests over the course of one month. I’m running out of good veins to hit.) I was pissed because I fretted that this meant I’d have to go off the gluten-free diet again but my doctor assured me that wasn’t the case. I guess I’ll listen to him and stay on the diet – because I really do want to stay on the GF diet, regardless of the results of the tests.