While in Portland, we ate at an entirely gluten-free restaurant called Verde Cocina. Described as having “Northwest Farm-to-Fork Ingredients with a Mexican flair”, the dishes on the brunch menu were a bit healthier than your average Mexican brunch. Everything on their menu comes with seasonal veggies. I ordered the Chilaquiles. This had eggs scrambled with pieces of their handmade corn tortillas and was topped with veggies, white bean garbanzo mash and ranchero salsa. I enjoyed it, but I might have put a little hot sauce on it for more oomph.
Tag Archives: gluten free
Verde Cocina
10 AugSeres Restaurant and Xiao Chi Bar
8 Aug
It is hard to find a Chinese Restaurant that is easy to eat at as a Celiac other than PF Changs. So imagine my excitement to find Seres in Portland. Here, GF items are clearly marked and I found our waitress to be very aware of cross contamination. We started with an order of the Tofu Salad Rolls. Then for our main dish, we split two of the vegetarian dishes. The first was the Dry-Sautéed String Beans.
Words can not describe how wonderful these were. All I know is that I will be thinking about these for a very long time. We also had the Kung Pao Tofu and Vegetables.
This dish was also great. Between the two of us, this was plenty of food as this dish was quite hardy.
Petunia’s Pies & Pastries
7 Aug
There are so many beautiful outdoor spaces in Portland. One day we walked to the Rose Test Garden which was massive compared to our Santa Barbara rose garden. Here, there were over 7,000 rose plants. After stopping to smell the roses, we continued to the Japanese Garden.
Known as the most authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan, this was also very beautiful. By now we had worked up an appetite so we walked back towards our hotel to think about our next meal. On the way, we just happened to walk by a completely gluten-free and vegan bakery called Petunia’s.
This place was amazing. After much deliberation, we decided on the Peanut Butter Crispy Bar.
This was like a peanut butter rice crispy treat…. how could that ever be bad? There were so many appealing looking things in the case. The bakery itself was really cute too, offering made-to-order coffee beverages and cocktails.
Besaw’s
6 Aug
We just got back from spending a few days in Portland, Oregon to celebrate my birthday and our wedding anniversary. Holy gluten-free awesomeness. I think Portland is my new favorite place. One morning, we decided to try a place called Besaw’s for breakfast. We shared an order of the rosemary-garlic roasted potatoes with melted gruyere. These were fantastic. I then ordered the gluten-free french toast, because why on earth would I order something else when that was on the menu?
This was pretty tasty too. They use a bread called Jensen’s which was perfect consistency for the french toast.
Hip Vegan Cafe
17 Jul
I know… it has been a looooong time since I have shared a new restaurant on here. There is something about summer that makes time fly by. Today, I had the day off, so we decided to go on the pretty drive to Ojai. There, we tried Hip Vegan Cafe. All gluten-free items are clearly labeled on their menu. Additionally, when I had questions, they were very aware of what was in each dish. I ordered the Avocado Wrap. This had avocado, lettuce, tomato and red onion wrapped in rice paper. I also had a choice of GF dipping sauces. I ended up getting the peanut sauce which was quite delicious. This came with soup or salad. I went with their special Indian Dahl soup of the day.
This was incredibly flavorful. It might have been crazy to have soup since it was in the 90s, but I was glad I did.
Red O
29 Jun
This past week, we went to LA for a day to look for some furniture. There was a fantastic store called HD Buttercup that we fell in love with. It was like West Elm but bigger and better. After working up an appetite, we headed over to Red O, a restaurant by Rick Bayless. You may recall that we had a great experience at Frontera Grill when we were in Chicago. He obviously makes sure the staff is aware of dietary restrictions at all of his restaurants. There was plenty for me to order, but I ended up getting three of the smaller dishes. I had the Corn and Goat Cheese Tamales. These had fresh ground corn masa with roasted poblano chiles. I also had the Fresh Oysters.
The oysters were served with a tomatillo-habanero miñoneta, smoky chipotle-garlic salsa & fresh-cut limes. The last item I had was the Spicy Baja Yellowtail Aguachile. This ceviche had spicy serrano chiles, lime, red onion, avocado and cilantro oil. This was my favorite of the three items. I ate it so quickly that there was no time for a picture. As a note, the corn chips here are not GF as they are fried in contaminated oil. However, they have fresh corn tortillas available as a substitute.
S.Y. Kitchen Round 2
28 Jun
This past week, we went back to S.Y. Kitchen with my parents. The meal was just as tasty as the first time we went. The table shared an order of the baked artichoke. This was beyond awesome. It was prepared with parmesan and fresh thyme. I also had their special avocado salad.
This was big enough that I wished I hadn’t ordered a main dish. But I did. For my entrée, I had the Oak Grilled Prime Natural Angus New York Steak.
This was served with arugula, parmigiano and balsamic. It was very good but I ended up taking most of it home since I was pretty full at this point. That didn’t stop me from ordering dessert though. They have one gluten-free labeled item on their dessert menu. It is an almond chocolate cake.
I liked that it wasn’t too chocolaty. This restaurant is becoming my favorite reason to take a drive to the wine country!
Brasil Arts Cafe
23 Jun
Happy Solstice Weekend! This past week, we had lunch at Brasil Arts Cafe. There are only two items on the menu that are labeled as gluten-free, but the lady at the register was very informed about any alterations that had to be made to other menu items to make them GF. I started with the Pão de Queijo. This is described as “Simple and Gluten-Free Brazilian Cheese Buns”. I loved this. My only complaint was that I thought I was getting multiple buns due to the description as I could have crushed a bunch of these! I then had the Brazilian Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken.
This was pretty similar to a typical caesar salad, except it had little pieces of that cheese bread as croutons. As much as I liked that bread on its own, it wasn’t as good of a consistency for croutons.
Tre Piani
19 Jun
This past weekend, I was in New Jersey for a family wedding. The night before the wedding, they had a dinner at Tre Piani in Princeton, New Jersey. Lucky for me (and my celiac brother), they had gluten-free pasta available. I ordered the GF penne with basil, garlic and mozzarella. Even luckier for me, I sat next to my brother so I could eat his dish which was tastier than mine.
He had ordered the GF penne with spinach and goat cheese. This had a lot more flavor than my dish. It is always nice to have GF options when out of town!
Miró at Bacara
18 Jun
A couple of weeks ago, I went to Bacara for breakfast with a friend to celebrate her birthday. When I started to ask my questions about gluten-free items, the waitress was very confused. It was clear that she was not sure what gluten-free meant. As she kept saying “I think that is okay”, I asked if she would just go to the kitchen to ask the chef what my options were. Once she came back, she knew that they had gluten-free bread available. I had the Open Face Santa Barbara Cambridge House Smoked Salmon on gluten-free bread. It was okay. The company and the views definitely made up for it though. One other thing that I was not crazy about that had nothing to do with being GF was that when she brought our dishes out, she also gave us the check immediately. I personally feel that by doing that, it makes you feel more rushed.
gluten-free in sb 