Amerigo

This past Friday hubby and I were running some errands in East Memphis and wanted to stop and grab a bite.  We decided to try Amerigo.  I just got an I-phone for Christmas and have decided that it's almost a must if you're eating out gluten free just for being able to check out menus.  I hopped online and was super excited to see that they had a gluten free menu.

I asked at the hostess station for the GF menu and they easily found one, which is usually a good sign.  And it even looked like a real menu, with prices and everything.  I've been in restaurants where they had to dig for 10 minutes before they found the GF menu, which was a many-time photocopied, wrinkled thing. 

We were seated and I started salavating over the menu items - Pasta Pomodoro and Spaghetti Alfredo - and all of it gluten free.  I was so excited.  The waitress then came to take our order and crushed my hopes by informing me that they were out of GF pasta.  I could have cried at that moment.  I was almost like my 6 year-old when he wants to do something and is told that he can't.  I pulled myself together and ordered the Veal Picatta.

It tasted pretty good, but would have been better with the pasta it was supposed to be served with.  To console myself over the missing pasta, I ordered the Peanut Butter Rocky Road Blondie.  It was super yummy.  I would have posted a photo but hubby and I had eaten half of it before I remembered to!  It was nice to be able to order a dessert and this one was super tasty.

So the moral of this GF story is not to get your hopes up about the pasta, but feel free to console yourself with some dessert.

Mellow Mushroom

Okay, after a brief post to rhapsodize over Trader Joe's, I'm back to restaurant land.  Earlier this year, the Memphis Business Journal announced that Mellow Mushroom is expanding into East Memphis.  This really excited me, because as a Midtowner, I don't make the long trek out to Germantown for dinner that often.  That means that I haven't had a chance to try eating some of their GF pizza.

Today the MBJ did another story on the expansion.  In case you haven't seen it, here are some of the details:
 
The second Memphis-area Mellow Mushroom should sprout up on Park Avenue by this summer. The local development team, operating as Mellow Ventures LLC, has filed a $750,000 building permit to convert the former AAA Auto Club Group building at 5138 Park into a restaurant.
 
Project demolition has started and construction could begin in late February. Harvey said they hope to be completed by June.  The 7,880-square-foot building at Eastgate Shopping Center will have an outdoor patio when completed.

Here's another opportunity for all of us Celiac and Gluten Intolerant people to get a decent dinner.  I've heard kind of mixed reviews from friends about the pizza and the service at the restaurant in Germantown.  Have you dined there?  Anyone care to comment about their experience?  Was the pizza good?  Did they seem to understand avoiding cross contamination?

For those of you interested in their menu, here's a link:  Mellow Mushroom Gluten Free Menu.  I really liked their comment on the bottom about the precautions they take.  My only criticism is one that I've heard often on message boards and blogs about GF menus in restaurants - there are no prices.  I understand that there's a good chance I will have to pay more for a gf pizza crust, gf pasta, or gf sandwich bread, but I guess the restaurant owners are worried that people will complain about the extra cost.  I don't know.  Any restaurant owners out there that care to weigh in?

On a personal note, I got glutened recently.  No, it wasn't at any of the fine establishments that I've talked about on the blog.  It was actually on my way back from Nashville (see the Trader Joe's post).  One of my many side effects when I ingest gluten is that I lose all my energy and become very depressed and apathetic.  Unfortunately it lasts for several weeks.  I am hoping to keep up with the blog while I recover, but there is a chance I may be too tired for a while.  But I will definitely return when all the evil poison is out of my system and I feel top notch again.  Until then, stay gluten free in the Bluff City...

Hog and Hominy

Didn't feel like cooking dinner Friday night.  That's nothing new for me.  But I was tired of going to all the usual restaurants we eat at.  Luckily I had picked up the latest copy of Edible Memphis last week.  They had an article on gluten free ordering etiquette and a list of some GF restaurants.  Since they don't have a link to the list on their website, I took a picture to keep as a handy reference:

I thought I'd give Hog and Hominy a shot.  It's located at Brookhaven Circle.  The place was hopping on a Friday night with lots of folks enjoying some delicious looking food.  The waiter seemed pretty knowledgeable about the gluten free items on their menu.  He said that all their pizzas could be made on a gluten free crust.  I was hooked right then.  I don't know about the rest of you GF peeps, but I get tired of eating salads at restaurants because it's the only safe food.  It was good to have tons of options.  Here were the pizza options alone:

We decided to go for the 'Shrooms Pizza.  This is what it looked like:

 

I would never have thought to put arugula on pizza, but it was really tasty.  It gave it a nice tang.  Like most GF pizzas, it was a thin crust.  It was good - not overcooked like thin crusts sometimes are.  The pizza was a little small for the both of us to eat.  We probably should have ordered one of their side dishes to go with it.  Especially since I was starving and hadn't had GF pizza in quite a while.  I made a pig of myself at Hog & Hominy (pun intended).  Overall I was very happy with my meal.

 

On another note, I do miss a good deep dish pizza.  I would pay a lot of money if someone could invent a good GF deep dish crust.  I never cheat on my GF diet and am seldom tempted.  But the other night I worked late and my husband ordered a pizza for him and my son.  The crust was sooooo tempting.  If anyone out there knows someplace in the Memphis area with a GF deep dish pizza, please, please, puh-lease let me know!  In the mean time, the thin crust pizzas at Hog & Hominy make a pretty good substitute.

Attune Foods

If you're anything like me, you get a ton of spam in your e-mail - everything from improving your love life and discounts on insurance to Nigerian investment scams.  While wading through all the junk yesterday, I was pleased to find an e-mail from Attune Foods with some useful information.  For those of you not in the know, Attune makes gluten free cereal and probiotic bars.  You can find them in Memphis at Whole Foods, or as my friend Robb calls it, "Whole Paycheck."

Here's what Attune had to say in their e-mail:

"With a New Year comes new intentions of eating better, doing better, goal-setting or maintaining healthy habits. We decided this year to take a different approach to tackling a new calendar year by suggesting how to start eating clean in 2013. Clean foods are simply defined as whole, unprocessed foods to help you thrive.

Eat Clean 2013 Menu Plans & Shopping Guides We teamed up with three Registered Dietitians including our Nutrition Ambassador Janel Funk for something to get you going in the right direction. Each of them created a week-long menu plan with a corresponding shopping list to show how eating clean can be easy and delicious. Click on the type of menu plan below that you think fits your lifestyle best."   I looked at the menu plan and it had a couple of good looking recipes and some different menu ideas.  Here's the link in case you want to check it out: Attune Foods 2013 Eat Clean Gluten Free