What to Do if a Restaurant Doesn’t Have a Gluten-Free Menu

What to Do if a Restaurant Doesn’t Have a Gluten-Free Menu.

BD’s Mongolian Grill – The SAFE Restaurant

I had the pleasure of talking to Ken Leetch, the General Manager, at BD’s Mongolian Grill in Bolingbrook.  He was nice enough to take the time out of his busy schedule to discuss their safety practices with me.  This restaurant can be allergen free, gluten-free,  Paleo, or Vegan.  You pick, and they will try to accommodate.  First off, BD’s Mongolian Grill is one of my favorite buffet type restaurant.  Most buffet type restaurants are not very safe for Bean with her peanut allergy, due to cross contamination issues.  I was comfortable taking her to BD’s before, but now that I know more about their safety practices I am confident that BD’s would be a safe place for her to eat.

If you have never been to BD’s Mongolian Grill, it is essentially a place where you pick the ingredients and then take it up to the grill.  It’s amazing stir fry.  You can purchase one bowl or unlimited bowls.  With your bowl, you also get their soup and salad bar.  Their soups recently changed to being 100% home-made in-house by BD’s.  After you start off with the soup and salad, then you take your bowl and go up to the buffet and choose your ingredients.  You have several choices of meat, vegetables, noodles, sauces, and spices.  Once you have all your ingredients picked out, you can take your food up to a grill to be cooked.

Some of the safety practices they follow are:

• Temperatures are checked on the food lines every few hours to make sure everything stays cold and fresh
• The tongs are constantly changed to avoid any cross contamination
• If you are concerned about possible cross contamination due to a food restriction or allergy, they will make your bowl from fresh ingredients in the back that are kept segregated
• Also, they have an Allergy Friendly cooking station.  It is a separate place to have your food cooked to avoid allergens in your food.  The pans are used one time before being washed, and then they are heated up to 200 degrees to burn off any remaining allergens
• There is a MAC or MAM (Market Area Manager or Market Area Coordinator) walking around the food area, in a black chef coat.  They can help create meals, give ideas, and also can provide you with a nutritional brochure.

They also have a .pdf file on their website that lists every single ingredient used in all of their items.  If you are on the go, there is an Android and Iphone app called BD’s Go Mongo.  The app lets you create-a-bowl, choose all your ingredients, and view all the ingredients in the bowl you made!

Disclaimer: I did this review, because this is one of my favorite restaurants.  I was not given anything and did not receive any compensation in any way,  in order to do this review.  All opinions are my own and not influenced in any way.

 

Awareness in the Food Service Industry

It was another one of those nights tonight…

You know, the whole, hey let’s try and go out and grab something for dinner.  For those of you who can do this effortlessly, and without any kind of thought, I envy you…dearly. For us, it is a lovely game of first, finding somewhere safe, and then second, trying to find somewhere that my uber picky Bear will eat from.

After a long debate and thought process, we finally settled on somewhere.  As usual, once we were there and getting ready to order, I went through our typical “we can NOT have anything with gluten, so I need to know what your ingredients are” speech.    And this was met with the typical “Oh is this for an allergy” question.  I begrudgingly say yes, not wanting to get into how it is NOT an allergy (that is another post for another day).  But then, to my dismay, our server said they would have to go and ask someone else, and they would get back to us about what was safe.   It took quite awhile, and finally someone else came out to talk to us, with a large book that they told me contained all the items they had and what was in each item.  And I am NOT kidding when I say that this binder had to be 3 or 4 inches thick.  At this point, we explained that we did not feel safe enough to continue our experience, thanked the establishment, left a small tip for our server ( I used to waitress, so I feel that it is only right to leave a little something for taking up some time at a table) and wound up back home eating leftovers.

But here is my point, I just feel like if you work in an establishment where food is served, you should be knowledgeable enough to explain to patrons what is or is not in your products.  Not just for those with gluten issues or food allergies, but for anyone who asks.  People are becoming more and more aware of what they put in their bodies, and typically most like to know what they are eating.  I just find it amazing that in most cases the servers or counter staff typically have no clue what they serve.  Even worse, as in our case, the management did not even know what was in the products they were serving.  Um…what?  While I understand that this may be a paycheck for you, this could be a life threatening mistake for someone else.  I am not at all trying to downplay the need for us with food issues to do our homework…but it would be nice for places to start educating their staff on the make up of the their products.  Also, maybe a bit of education on the plethora of food issues that people can have.  It would be nice to walk into a restaurant and explain my situation and have it met with something more than a weird look.  A bit of extra effort on the part of restaurants could do wonders for their customer service, and open up their businesses to a whole new market of people who may have previously been unaware that eating there was a safe place.

Awesome Website!! Allergy Eats!

Allergy Eats is a fantastic website!  It is an online guide to allergy friendly restaurants.  You click on your specific allergies, type in your zip code and it gives you allergen friendly restaurants around you!  When you click on a restaurant that comes up in your search, it will give you real reviews from people who have dined there too!  You can also rate and review restaurants.  It allows you choose from these specific allergens (or you can suggest one):

Select your food allergy or intolerance:
Peanuts	Dairy	Wheat	Fish	Sesame
Tree Nuts	Eggs	Gluten	Shellfish	Soy

They have a free android and Iphone app so you can find locations while you are on the go!

They even have a special Walt Disney World one that allows you to choose your hotel, or one of these popular locations…

Magic KingdomEPCOTHollywood Studios Animal Kingdom Downtown Disney

Blizzard BeachTyphoon LagoonBoardwalk ESPN Wide World of Sports

What a great resource!  Definitely need to check it out!  I am loving this site!