gluten-free

The famous Porto sandwich (and more)

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I’ll remember Portugal for a lot of things. The coastal vibe of Nazaré. The beauty of Lisbon, especially as seen from atop one of its many hills. The old world charm of Coimbra. But most of all, I’ll remember Portugal for its food and drink. This trip ended up being one of the best in terms of eating that my wife and I have ever taken.

The three days we spent in Porto at the end of the trip capped off our eating adventures in a wonderful fashion. On night one, we saddled up to the bar at Cantinho do Avillez and let the bartender do his magic with cocktail creations through the evening. This was a very wise choice.

Cantinho do Avillez

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Delicacies in Lisbon

/ Greg / 2 Comments

In thinking back on the close to one week we spent in Lisbon last fall, the first thing that comes to mind is the food. While we did not explicitly plan for Lisbon to be a dominant foodie experience, we had a host of amazing meals, dishes and drinks scattered around the city. One meal was so good, I even just wrote about it separately so I could attempt to do it justice.

So, here goes for a tour through our Lisbon eating experiences…

Night one, slightly jet legged and craving an early to bed evening, we arrived at Cantinho do Avillez at the almost ridiculous hour (for Portugal, or for anyone under the age of 73) of 4:30 for dinner. What a great start to our stay in Lisbon. Olives, a baked cheese dish and some local pork sausage got us off to an amazing start.

Cantinho do Avillez

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Three great meals

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Admittedly, it’s not too difficult to simply stumble upon a great meal in either Paris or Lyon. With even a half an ounce of planning, you’ll have hundreds and hundreds of options at your fingertips. Our challenge was a little steeper as our plans need to be gluten free for one of us (thankfully, not me… I’ll take the entire bread plate, thanks). Over a two week period, we made three reservations and each gave us an outstanding dining experience.

Chez Marcel, Paris

You would walk right past this place if you weren’t paying attention. It is a quaint 30 seat bistro tucked just off the busy Boulevard Raspail. We arrived a few minutes before our 7:30 reservation and waited for the owner to arrive and let us in to the restaurant. As soon as we stepped foot inside, we knew we would be in for a great meal.

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Alberta beer sampling

/ Greg / 1 Comment

With the move from Halifax to Saskatoon and all that entailed, this has been a year of shorter trips and vacations. One of those was a July road trip to Edmonton to see the Tragically Hip play on their last tour. Like all my trips this year, and owing to Saskatchewan’s limited selection of craft beer, I managed to find a way to sneak in some sampling and tastings over a couple of days in Edmonton.

On the afternoon before the Hip show, I noticed an interesting beer and wine store in the downtown and grabbed these two to put on ice back at the hotel. The Blindman Session ale was very tasty post-concert. I should have been smarter and grabbed more to bring back home.

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Living off tapas in Seville

/ Greg / 5 Comments

In my perfect universe, every meal would be tapas style.  Small dishes, lots of sampling and experimenting, sharing – these form my idea of how to eat.  I’ve already written about a week’s worth of eating in Madrid where every single meal we had outside of our apartment was tapas style.  Well, we continued that trend for our time in Seville too.

On our third night in Seville, we started the night at Bar Alfalfa.  It’s a compact place with the noise of conversations filling the high, arching ceilings.  We were lucky to find a table along the windows on a rainy night.  The draw for us here was their gluten-free friendliness allowing my wife a few more ordering options than at other places.  That alone would put a smile on her face, but on this night, a man at the bar with his pet bird on his shoulder made her, and everyone smile:

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Gluten-free tapas in Madrid

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Prior to our fall trip to Spain, while I was researching tapas joins and all the interesting dishes I was going to be trying, my wife had resigned herself to two weeks of jamón ibérico as a staple of her diet on the account of her Celiac.  Not that plates of jamón ibérico are a bad consolation prize, but for her, she had accepted that she wouldn’t be sampling widely from the menu as we saddled up to bar after bar.

Thanks to Taberna La Concha in Madrid, my wife got the Spanish tapas experience she thought she would miss out on.   On our second night in Madrid, we wandered about ten minutes from our La Latina apartment and  held court at a little table in the basement of the bar.  My wife’s face lit up when she was presented with a dedicated gluten-free menu and I turned the night’s ordering over to her.  The first dish: anchovies in pesto

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A week of tacos

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I have written many times about my love of really good tacos, so it will come as no surprise that before leaving for San Diego I had a long list of taco places I wanted to visit.  In particular, I wanted to try what might be the official food of San Diego, the fish taco.  So, wasting no time, on our first night in the city my wife and I made our way to the downtown location of Puesto, a restaurant that consistently wins the “best fish taco” award in a couple of San Diego’s alternative weekly papers.

Another great thing about Puesto, and really all of the taco joints we would hit, is they offered great gluten free selections for my wife.  Unfortunately, no Baja fish tacos (they’re normally breaded and fried), but she didn’t mind as she enjoyed (and happily shared!) her plate of chicken verde, carnitas and vegetable tacos (picture on the left).   That drink in that picture was a mango margarita and hands down the best drink of the entire trip.   My fish tacos (picture on the right) were incredible.  The fish was perfectly fresh cod, battered using blood orange beer and topped with cabbage, chile cream, avocado and tomatillo roja.   One night in, and I would have agreed to live in San Diego just to keep eating these tacos.

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Delicious (and gluten free) Sorrento

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After being in bustling Rome and Naples, spending five nights in Sorrento was like a vacation within a vacation.   Even with the day trips we were taking, the pace of life slowed down significantly, especially in the evenings once we returned back to Sorrento.   And evenings in Sorrento meant dinner and wine in Sorrento.  On a couple of those evenings, we decided on a picnic like meal in the inner courtyard garden of our apartment, just off Piazza Sant’Antonino.  Not a bad place for a meal!

Apartment courtyard in Sorrento

On Canadian Thanksgiving evening, we stopped by the grocery store and picked up a nice spread of smoked cheeses, some cured meats, gluten free cookies, bread (for me), paprika chips (a European tradition for us) and a bottle of prosecco.   We’ve now had a few of these al fresco Thanksgiving dinners in Europe over the years.  There’s something special about eating under the stars…

Thanksgiving in Sorrento

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Naples in 24 hours: The pizzas

/ Greg / 4 Comments

A mere twenty four hours in Naples, Italy…  This brief stopover on our way from Rome to Sorrento existed for a couple of reasons – to visit the Naples National Archaeological Museum in advance of visiting Pompeii a few days later, and for me to try as many pizzas as I could.  I’m proud to say I managed to squeeze in four delicious pizzas, even if for one of them it meant creating a rarely used meal between lunch and dinner.

The first pizza of the visit was a proper street lunch at what many believe to be the world’s first ever pizzeria, Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba.  Back in the mid 1700s this restaurant replaced street food stands and brought their wood fired pizzas out to the street to sell.   Here I am taking my first bite of a Neapolitan pizza:

First taste of Naples pizza from Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba

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Rome: Let the eating begin

/ Greg / 4 Comments

Our Italy trip was, of course, going to be about eating and drinking well for two weeks.   We got that kicked off right away on our first night in Rome.  Knowing we would be jet lagged and coming from a soccer match earlier that afternoon, we planned ahead and made reservations at a restaurant near St. Peter’s Basilica.   If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a decade of serious traveling, it’s that you should plan your first meal post-arrival.  There’s nothing more frustrating as being in a new place, tired and hungry.

Armed with great recommendations from some gluten-free bloggers (thanks!), we arrived at La Soffitta Renovatio about forty five minutes after leaving Stadio Olimpico.   Not personally in need of their gluten free menu, I opted for an Italian beer, a Peroni rossa, to quench my thirst from sitting in the sun all afternoon:

First beer in Rome

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