Don’t you get jealous when you see items in the store that you want to eat but you can’t.

I do.

I was shopping Fresh and Easy the other day and they do carry a number of Glutino brand products like pretzels. But right next to the Glutino pretzels, I saw a non-gf chocolate covered pretzels bag.

Once I got home, I went directly to my favorite online gluten-free shopping store and delightfully found that Glutino does have chocolate covered pretzels!

You can order them too right here!

While researching local gluten free restaurants online in the Long Beach CA area, you might come across this link:
http://www.urbanspoon.com/tn/5/1/437/LA/Gluten-Free-Friendly/Long-Beach-restaurants

Or do a search on yelp.com for “gluten-free” and you will get a list of restaurants that might appear to be somewhere new to dine GF in the Long Beach area.

But, I just have to warn you that you cannot rely on the accuracy of the restaurants listed on either of these sites.

I spent an afternoon researching and calling each restaurant listed on these two restaurant review sites as “gluten-free friendly” on urbanspoon or found under the search for “gluten-free” at yelp.

To my dismay, I found that only approximately 20% of the restaurants listed on these two review sites were actually even aware of what gluten intolerant meant.

I really loved it when I called KAVIKAS Grill & Bar (listed on urbanspoon as “gluten-free friendly”) and the person answering the phone did not even know what the word, gluten meant and kept trying to tell me that they have a kid-friendly menu.

Same for Frontier Burgers….I talked to a manger there and they have no clue what gluten is, let alone what it means to have gluten-free items on their menu.

To their credit, urbanspoon did remove the above 2 restaurants above from the ‘gluten-free friendly’ list once they saw my comments that I posted that exposed these restaurants as GF frauds.

As for yelp.com, I think that it is the technology that is at fault on yelp.com. Just the mention of gluten in the reviews puts the site on the list but that does not mean the restaurant is gluten free…only that someone used that word in some way other than gluten-free in their comments.

See my review on Claim Jumper (don’t go there) at
http://www.yelp.com/biz/claim-jumper-long-beach

As for urbanspoon….I don’t know how the restaurants get on the list. They need to check a box that says, ‘gluten-free friendly’ and it could be that as the trend increases, restaurants will just check the box to get on the list even if they are not even aware of what gluten intolernace or celiac disease is all about.

To be better informed, I suggest that you return often to this website. As I eat around town (I am currently working my way through ‘gluten-free friendly’ restaurants listed on urbanspoon that I called and seem like they might be safe), I will report back on the restaurants you can truly count on since I am extremely sensitive. If I can eat there, then so can any celiac or gluten intolerant diner.

Stay tuned for more personal reviews!

I love gyros and I love Greek food but I haven’t had it in years. Not since I found out I had celiac disease around 8 years ago.

Imagine how happy I was when I found that there is a local dining place for Gyros!

It’s right near Whole Foods on PCH which makes it a lovely place to stop and grab a Gyro meal sans the pita bread when I am buying my Whole Foods GF items.

You would not necessarily know that the restaurant that I am referring to is a Greek food place since it is called, Chicken Dijon.

And when you first enter, you might think that all they have is rotisserie chicken since that is all they have posted on their menu board but they do have 3 menu items that contain gyros. Just look for the gyro placards on the counter by the cash register.

They have a gyro meal with fantastic tasing and completely gluten-free Mediterranean fries and steamed veggies. Or you can get their gryo salad with a completely gluten free dressing. Or you can order their gryo sandwich - order without the pita bread, of course.

Again, just be sure to order any of their gyros choices, including the salad, without the pita bread since not every person who takes your orders even knows that pita bread has wheat in it (no kidding…the kid that waited on me was oblivious).

As an added note, I have read that all of the Rotisseie chicken meals are gluten free as are the sides that include the salad, hummus, baba ganoush, backed potatoes and the delicious Mediterranean fries which are fries sprinkled with olive oil and feta cheese (which must be gluten free since I did not have a reaction).

I just haven’t had a chance to try the chicken items to be sure.

Although this Chicken Dijon is not a fancy restaurant, it does have tables outside on the patio which makes for a nice, low-key dining experience.

Chicken Dijon has many locations around southern California. Go to their website at www.chickendijon.com to find the nearest one to you and enjoy!

The website urbanspoon.com lists George’s Greek Cafe in Long Beach and Lakewood to be gluten friendly so I gave the Lakewood location a call.

Interestingly, one of the people in management has just been diagnosed with celiac so I was able to get the inside scoop on this popular Greek restaurant.

Basically, the gyros and the salad dressing contain a minuscule amount of gluten as well as most of the meats and salad options since all of these items include their specialty Greek seasoning.

I loved the honesty of the person I talked to who was good enough to be very clear that their Greek seasoning does contain a tiny amount of gluten at less than 1%. For me, that little bit makes a big difference and the only way I can dine at George’s Greek Cafe is to order everything without any seasoning -what’s the fun in that!

For the sensitives like myself, I can order meats from the menu by asking for meats without the seasoning (don’t try this at the downtown location as they are too busy there). I will also not be able to have a salad there since their only salad dressing also contains the seasoning.

For those not so sensitive, just know that the beef and lamb gyros do contain bread crumbs and the chicken gyros do not. Still, all the gyros do have their Greek seasoning so order with that in mind.

One more thing-if you are planning at dining at any one of the 3 locations of George’s Greek Cafe, you can ask for their list of items on the menu that do contain gluten. They will gladly provide you with this list (or so I am told) so that you can eliminate what you cannot eat and perhaps find something that will not give you a gluten reaction.

As for me, I will stick to the one place I know that I can eat the gyros and salad dressing…..see my post about my favorite local Greek food establishement, Chicken Dijon.