Heading off to the Cheesecake Factory for a friend’s birthday dinner, and all I can think is… do they have a gluten free menu? do they even know what gluten is? what are the odds of cross contamination (high). Do I dare risk it?
Honestly, I don’t know. I’m tempted to eat a muffin now (I love you, Udi’s!) and not eat when I get there. Or maybe order a float. A float should be safe, right? Soda and ice cream. But wait, ice cream sometimes has gluten in it. Or is contaminated. Or maybe they didn’t clean the ice cream scoop well enough after scooping out some cookies ‘n cream (man, I miss that).
Such is the daily life of a celiac. I’d say it made me OCD and neurotic, except I was already OCD long before my diagnosis.
Twitter
Cheesecake Factory had an amazing allergy menu for about two weeks. They listed all the possible allergens in a dish and told you what to leave out if you didn’t want that thing. It was amazing, but for some reason they pulled it. All that being said, they have always been very good about my orders. I had lunch with a GF friend there just before Christmas. She got the pork with mashed potatoes and a side of apple sauce. I had steak and veggies. Other than my veggies being a little under cooked for my sensitive stomach, we both enjoyed our meals. Have fun tonight!
I’m amazed at how many restaurants can accommodate GF now. I don’t know about Cheesecake Factory, but PF Chang’s has GF noodles and soy sauce available, and servers seem to be more educated on it how. I have a family member diagnosed celiac more than 10 years ago. Back then, if he told a server he couldn’t have the salad because they put croutons on it, he sometimes would get the same salad back, only with the croutons picked off. He got sick a couple times from that, since there were crumbs from the croutons still on the salad.