Gluten Free Breeze (formerly Brendygirl) Blog

Travel Dude looked online and found that The Original Pancake House serves gluten-free pancakes! He drove me 30 minutes away to try them. They gave me six (WAY too many), and only AFTERWARD told me I could order a half-order. They were ok. Travel Dude (who's finicky and usually hates gluten-free food) tried them and said he'd eat them himself. It was cool that there didn't have to be much fuss or weirdness when I ordered and I got to eat something fairly tasty. The lingonberries were pretty good (they ship them in from Sweden) and really cool that the latest Janet Evanovich book I had been reading at the time, has a main character named Lingonberry!

Celiac.com Sponsor (A13):
Z's Pizza restaurants have gluten free pizzas. I haven't tried them yet, but they are all over So.California. They even have single-sized ones.

In Kauai, we were delighted to discover in a tourist guide an article on a gluten-free bakery called Sweet Marie's Hawaii Inc. I tasted her passion fruit cake (similar in texture to cheesecake, but better ((since I hate cheesecake))because it's made with passion fruit mousse and a thin cake layer at the very bottom about 1/4" thick), it was good, not great. The muffins were her forte! I loved the banana chocolate chip the best! I bought half a dozen of a variety of tropical kinds and took them along on our boat excursions and places that I might need food on our trip. Still had some to take home and they kept great! Yes, she ships in $10 flat rate boxes.

I also enjoyed a wonderful meal at Smith's Luau. The pork was amazing (I'd never eaten it on previous trips to Hawaii since I had been vegetarian! LOL) The fresh fruit, mashed potatoes, and rice pudding was great (I hate tapioca, so this was surprising), upon asking, I learned it had sweetened condensed milk, rice, and I forgot the two other simple ingredients, but I'd love to recreate it! Everything at the buffet was in large containers separated well with separate tables for several items and separate utensils.

I DIDN'T get glutened on the entire 11 day trip! We brought our own Garvin GPS along (she speaks excellent Hawaiian!) and found a Costco on the island and bought pre-cooked shrimp and c%$#$tail sauce platters, tortilla chips, and mango salsa and avocado, which I kept in the hotel room mini-fridge and packed portions in tossable tupperware in a soft-sided lunch-sized cooler with ice we'd brought from home (one pkg of shrimp and stuff each lasted up to 3 meals for me, even with sharing some). It was very romantic feeding each other tortilla chips with mango salsa and a giant shrimp on top to each other on the beach.

We also had lovely brunch and dinner at the gluten-aware fancy restaurant called Gaylord's on a plantation in Kauai. I enjoyed pork with wine sauce and salad and I forgot what else. Yum.

We also frequented Duke's (named after the famed surfer) burger joint (excellent burgers (sans bun) and nachos (sans nothing!) and the Beach Shack that had great eggs and omelets that we could pick up to go before our day trips.

New things I tried in Kauai (my first time to this Garden Island, but I'd previously eaten Hawaiian dishes in Maui and Oahu) were apple-bananas (yum), papaya (ok), rice pudding (good), and the pork they steam in the pit (fantastic). Old favorites from prior Hawaiian trips: Shave ice (I love lime and mango or orange), mango, pineapple, Blue Hawaiian drinks, and chocolate macadamia nut ice cream, and various pinapple and coconut versions of normal foods.