Sejuiced

1958 4th Avenue West
Vancouver, BC 
(604) 730-9906 

Type of cuisine: Vegetarian
Date of Review: May, 2010

Overall Quality Ranking: Good

Cost: Inexpensive
Gluten-Free Menu Options: Somewhat restricted
Gluten Free Diner Comfort ranking: Cautiously Comfortable

Description:  Sejuiced is not an obvious place, and as our retail advisor indicated, it was a bit of a hidden gem.  Located in a small space alongside other store fronts, it is unobtrusive enough that you might not think to enter.  The theme here is organic and vegetarian, with plenty of juicing going on.  But it seemed to offer GF options, so we gave it a go.

My dining partner went with the “Ecstacies of Freshness” salad with a piquant Super (veggie) Burger.  Both fit the bill and fulfilled the vegetable craving.  On placing my order at the counter, the server knew about the soy sauce issue and helped me to steer clear of danger.  I ventured the Swami-G bowl with tahini sauce, crispy fresh vegetables, tofu, and brown rice.  The sauce was simple and I could have used a bit more spice or mouth flame, but the combination was comfortably filling and I left suspecting I’d gained a couple of years of healthy life.  They also have GF bread on hand, from a bakery I did not recognize.  The bread was mouth-sucking dry—average for mass-made GF bread—but the very fact they had it in store scored them points. 

If you are looking to extend your shopping or business efforts with a healthy fill-me-up, give these guys a try.

Salpicon

1525 N Wells St.Chicago, Il
312-988-7811 

Type of cuisine: Mexican
Date of Review: June, 2010

Overall Quality Ranking: Excellent

Cost: Moderate
Gluten-Free Menu Options: Good
Gluten Free Diner Comfort ranking: Comfortable

Description:  This was our second visit to Salpicon, and we would certainly return.  A more upscale Mexican restaurant, Salpicon offers a good variety for the GF eater.  Typical to many Mexican establishments, corn often serves as a safe alternative flour for wheat.

To get into the Mexican groove, I went for a straight-up tequila.  A Cuervo Reserva de la Familia Anejo, it had a nose of ripe strawberry and caramel.  In the mouth,  it was rich and reminiscent of a good scotch, rounded out with an oaky smoothness.

We tried three appetizers.  The first was a trio of tamales, a soothing and homey corn grain set out in three  sauces.    The second was a soft shell crab.  Pan fried, it was very garlicky but fairly oily with a texture short of satisfyingly crisp.  The third was a another trio, thick tortillas with shredded chicken and three different spicy mole sauces. 

As a principal plate, the pork in a traditional sauce was both earthy and spicy hot and was nicely offset by simple rice, pineapple, plantain, and sweet potato.  We also tried the two vegetarian stuffed peppers, one with cheese in a tomatillo sauce and one with a tomato red pepper sauce.  Both were very good.  Finally, we shared the flan for dessert. It was light and not overly sweet and was served under a lacy sugar dome.

Service was friendly and well paced, with plenty of water refills and check-ups on our well-being. Salpicon is renovating its first floor at present, but the second story was still a pleasant space, if rather loud.

Mexican food is often a good option for the GF eater, and if you have a hankering for something different from tacos and burritos, Salpicon offers a great experience.

C5 at the Royal Ontario Museum

100 Queen’s Park
Toronto, ON

416-586-8000

Type of cuisine: Bistro
Date of Review: June, 2010

Overall Quality Ranking: Excellent

Cost: Expensive 
Gluten-Free Menu Options: Somewhat restricted 
Gluten Free Diner Comfort ranking: Cautiously comfortable

Description:  Heading to a place like C5 at the ROM brings expectations, and these were largely met, with a couple of minor food demerits.  On this Saturday evening, the restaurant was fairly empty, although it is a good size restaurant.  The menu has a good variety of options with a few restrictions for those who must go gluten free.  Some group offerings are also included, although we did not partake.

For the GF lovers, the bread was rated highly, and looked great.  Good tasting bread often looks good too, it seems.  The amuse bouche this evening was pickled watermelon rind with watermelon juice and watercress.  It sounds odd, but it worked, and I’d love to pop one of these guys after a good run.  Appetizers were varied.  Two of us chose the charcuterie, which had  a nice variety of meats and pates, although the GF eater’s marker of a really good restaurant—a bit of GF cracker or sliced apple in lieu of toasts—was not provided.  The mushroom green salad with mushroom puree was a hit, and the soft-shelled crab salad was delicious without being oily.  For a bottle, we opened with a Gruner Vetliner Austrian white, which was full bodied and worked nicely against any lingering Austrian wine bias.

We sampled some breadth of the mains.  My boar on the fatty side even for non-industrial beast.  Nevertheless, it was delicious, not overly gamey and came with a soothing pear and maple celeriac hash and salty-zippy little boar pancetta bits and wilted greens.  I’d do it again.  One fellow diner had the bass, which was good and garlicky.  Another had the lamb two ways with a yummy goat cheese mash.  The lamb chops were a bit tough but the braised lamb was rich tasting and wonderfully tender. Our fourth member went with the surf and turf, which appeared as prawn terrine and steak with a bright piri piri dressing (a parsley, chili, and onion salsa encountered in Argentina, but reportedly more of Portuguese or Mozambique origin); it was ranked highly.  The accompanying wine for this round was an Argentinian malbec with a fruity nose but which was thin on the palate.

With great fortitude and in the name of research, we hit the dessert menu.  The chocolate log with dark chocolate and rhubarb did not last very long.   The chocolate and butterscotch pudding with little donuts contributed to silence at the table while the lemon olive oil cake with honey sorbet and marscapone cream was graded delicious.  Two of us also shared a cheese plate with fabulous Quebec numbers accompanied by addictive candied nuts and dry fruits.

The wait staff was very friendly and helpful, from dietary issues to wine recommendations.  Service moved along at an appropriate clip.  The physical space, were it studied, might actually prove good for the brain.  As the upper part of the Libeskind’s Crystal, the walls bent off at wonky angles and the windows were large and afforded great light and satisfying local views.

C5 puts a hip name on a hip space.  The service is great and only a couple of minor food slips keep the restaurant from being outstanding. 

Pho Dau Bo

15 Cannon Street East, Unit #2
Hamilton, Ontario
905-525-0100  

Type of cuisine: Vietnamese
Date of Review: June, 2010

Overall Quality Ranking: Good

Cost: Inexpensive
Gluten-Free Menu Options: Somewhat restricted
Gluten Free Diner Comfort ranking: Cautiously comfortable

Description:  Our visits to Pho Dau Bo are frequent enough that it is shameful they have not featured on this blog.  And we were not the only ones there.  On any night, a number of tables are occupied.  The menu is somewhat limited for the GF eater, and there is something of a language barrier, but you can back for Pho (a Vietnamese soup) again and again.  The broth is made in the kitchen without bouillon added (noting that bouillon cubes and the like are often filled out with flour, a problem that can also extend to the broth used when making rice).   The broth is rich, the meat is of good quality, and the basil is fresh and fragrant.  Both the chicken and beef Pho are as comforting as they are tasty.  The salad rolls contain nice fresh basil, lettuce, and shrimp (or whatever you wish) and are not simply overloaded with rice vermicelli.  Remember to ask for fish sauce for dipping in lieu of the peanut sauce (which is wheat containing). 

Service is more or less perfunctory, but not unpleasant.  There is little wait for food.  The decor is not the draw, but upscale would be out of place, and it is bright and comfortable. 

Pho Dau Bo is a great after-work pit stop, it’s a great place to visit before a show, it’s a comforting place to drop into during the weekend….. well, you get the idea.  There is a second location in Stoney Creek.