One of my favorite places to go when I am in New Jersey is Janice a bistro in Ho-Ho-Kus. Fun fact: Ho-Ho-Kus is the only double hyphenated town in the country! Janice’s has always been incredibly gluten-free friendly with items on the menu clearly marked if they can be prepared GF. This visit, I had the grilled chicken sandwich with cheddar, avocado, bacon and chipotle mayo. I also got a side of their parmesan garlic fries since they are made in a dedicated fryer.
While in New Jersey, we discovered a Vietnamese restaurant that was incredibly gluten-free friendly. Right on the menu of Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly, it had items starred that they were able to prepare GF! I had gluten-free vegetable dumplings which were really good. We then split two dishes, the spicy pad thai and the crispy tofu with vegetables.
The pad thai had a subtle heat to it and had a nice flavor. And then there was the crispy tofu…
There was the choice of putting it with a garlic or spicy sauce. Since I could not have the garlic sauce, the waiter offered to do it with a spicy curry sauce. This was SPICY, but in a good way. There was loads of flavor and I have a feeling I will be thinking about this dish for months to come.
I have written about my love for Houston’s before. This time I ordered the branzino with the fries. As a reminder, for the fries, you need to have them hold the seasoning. You also need to order the ketchup for the fries without the seasoning.
We were back in New Jersey visiting family, so I took it upon myself to search for a new gluten-free restaurant to try. I read about La Riviera Trattoria and their GF menu online, so we decided to try it the first night we were there. We started with the stuffed artichoke with GF breadcrumbs.
I had never had a artichoke with bread crumbs (for obvious reasons), but I really enjoyed this. We also shared the fresh roasted peppers with mozzarella that were consumed too quickly for a photo opp. My husband ordered the GF gnocchi with a butter and sage sauce so that I could sample it.
This was incredibly rich and good. It is a good thing I don’t live closer to this restauant or else I could see myself eating this dish multiple times a week, and growing horizontally quite rapidly. I ordered chicken parmigiana for my main dish.
I can’t remember the last time that I was able to order this at a restaurant. It was always one of my favorite comfort foods growing up so it made me so happy to be able to have it again, bread crumbs and all. And… since I tend to overorder when given a GF menu, we also had an order of the GF penne with garlic and broccoli.
This was a lighter pasta that went well with my chicken parmigiana. I wasn’t going to get dessert but then I looked at the menu and there was a gluten-free brownie with vanilla ice cream demanding to be ordered.
Thank goodness I had my parents, grandparents and husband to help out with this since I had eaten way too much at this point. The brownie had a really good consistency and taste to it though. This restaurant was so overly accommodating thanks to the owner’s daughter having celiac. They take great pride in ensuring that there is no cross contamination in the preparation of the GF items. If you can even think about food at the end of your meal (which I personally couldn’t), they have pasta, bread crumbs and other assorted GF products available for puchase on your way out.
The best thing about having friends with Celiac means that when you go to their birthday parties, there are always amazing GF goodies. They did a barbeque with the most delicious gluten-free hamburger buns. I found out they were a brand called Canyon Bakehouse. These were almost buttery and did a great job at holding up all of the fixings. For dessert, we had a homemade gluten-free apple pie was ridiculously good as well.
We decided to try El Taco Tequila Taqueria tonight as we explored some stores in downtown Santa Barbara. Any restaurant that has the words “taco” and “tequila” in its name is alright by me. We shared the Poblano Relleno, a cheese stuffed poblano chili with tomato sauce served on fresh corn tortillas. These ingredients always seem to go well together. We also shared an order of the guacamole.
This was pretty straightforward. I then ordered three tacos. The first was the Camaron a la Diabla.
This was described as “spicy grilled shrimp, cabbage, crema Mexicana and cotija cheese”. I didn’t think there was anything spicy about it, but I still enjoyed it. I then had the Bistec Tampiqueño.
This was grilled rosemary garlic skirt steak with poblano chili and melted cheese. I thought this was better than the shrimp taco. My favorite item that I ordered was the Pechuga de Pollo.
The grilled chicken in this taco was really tender. The onions, poblano chili and melted cheese just enhanced the meat. Do note that if you are gluten-intolerant, you can’t have the chips. They are corn chips but they are fried in contaminated oil.
Yesterday, we went to Fresco for breakfast. I was able to order one of their wraps on their GF bread. I got the Morning Wrap which had three eggs, vermont cheddar, crispy bacon and fresh avocado. I got it served with the side of fruit. This was VERY filling.
While perusing the shelves at Whole Foods, I stumbled upon these goodies. GO BUY THESE. They are the perfect dessert item for the summer. I love the size of them as well… not too big, but large enough to be satisfying. Yummy!
This was one of those epic weekends full of fun things like the Downtown Art and Wine Tour, i madonnari and some stand-up paddle boarding at Butterfly Beach. What better weekend to have a great meal at Bouchon? I started with the special soup for the day which was a white corn puree with sweet piquillo pepper and herb garni. For my main dish, I had the grilled wagyu flat iron steak.
Since I couldn’t have the bleu cheese potato croquette, they substituted fingerling potatoes. It seemed that the staff there was well aware of what I could have and what I had to avoid.
We went to Via Maestra 42 the other night and I ordered the very enjoyable gluten-free pasta you see pictured above. The name of the dish has escaped me, but I can tell you the following: If you find yourself there, order the pasta with the pancetta and tomatoes. There is a subtle heat to the dish that made for a perfect meal and even more perfect leftovers.
gluten-free in sb 