Review: Pizza Express

Final Marks: 4 out of 5

Last night I went for a farewell meal for one of my friends who is moving across the country soon. We will see her regularly I'm sure, but we wanted to mark the occasion with... pizza! Seeing as I've already reviewed Zizzi this evening, I thought I'd go ahead and share my experiences at Pizza Express as well.

Until fairly recently, Pizza Express was firmly on my veto list, as the last time I had been there (about 3 years ago) the only thing I could eat was, you guessed it, a mushroom risotto. I think it was the all purpose vegetarian, lactose free, gluten free option and not only was it boring, it was only a starter size! Not good.

However, they have really turned things around and now have an extensive offering of gluten free items on their menu (their website also has lots of great information, as you can see). You are now spoiled for choice between almost all of their pizzas, a salad, a famously good aubergine dish, a few starters, a pudding and even some gluten free beer. Unfortunately that mushroom risotto is still on there, but let's gloss over that.

I ordered the Toscana pizza and I'd highly recommend it. Slightly herby sausage, good mozzarella, basil leaves, amazing.

"Crumbled sausage with chilli & fennel, mozzarella and tomato finished with baby mozzarella, Gran Moravia cheese, fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil"

The base was thin and crispy, but not too tough, and fairly tasty. It's not the absolute best gluten free pizza base I've ever had, but it's top 5 for sure. I also adore the toppings, especially all that mozzarella. Sometimes I dream about mozzarella. TMI? Ok moving on...

I followed this with one of their Dolcetti, which is a mini pudding which comes with a hot drink of your choice. It's a pretty good choice because the puddings are plenty big enough, and it's good to do the hot drink thing all at the same time. I chose the chocolate brownie, because it was the only option, but I would have chosen it anyway to be honest! I had a peppermint tea with it, was was hot water with real mint leaves in it - delicious. They both were, actually. The brownie had some bits in it that looked suspiciously like chopped nuts, but didn't taste much like them, so I'm not sure what was going on there. One to check if you are nut-averse.

"Soft and chocolatey, a classic brownie recipe using gluten-free flour, topped with fresh strawberry and icing sugar"

So it's maybe not the biggest gluten free menu in the world, but it has everything on it that I could want, and the actual finished product is good as well. The service was good, and we had a 40% off voucher as well - winner. There is usually some special offer or other going on at Pizza Express which makes it excellent value, so I'd always recommend checking online before you go. All in all I'd recommend it, and I suggest you give it a try if you haven't already.

Cheers everyone!

-Rachel

Gluten Free Adventures

Well I promised you Gluten Free Adventures, didn't I...?!

This is just a quick post to say that I will be attending the Adventure Travel Show in Olympia, London tomorrow. I'm going with the aim of researching holidays which are a bit out of the ordinary but also suitable for coeliacs. I will let you know how I get on....!

I don't know about you, but I find booking holidays one of the most potentially tricky parts of being a coeliac. There are ways of minimising the uncertainty, like renting an apartment for example, but I do miss just being able to go somewhere and know that there will be something that you will be able to eat, even if it is a bit unusual. 

I will do a longer post on good holiday ideas at another time, but here's hoping I discover some great options tomorrow!

-Rachel

Review: Zizzi

Final Marks: 1.5 out of 5

Exactly two weeks ago, I went out for dinner for a long overdue catch up with two of my good friends. After much deliberation we settled on Zizzi in Covent Garden due to its vague equidistance between all three of us, the fact that they had some good offers on and crucially, the fact that I remembered them having a good gluten free menu.

Things got off to a great start as I met one of my friends, we’ll call her Stella, and we pitched up for our 7pm reservation a little early. We were given a table in the basement section, which was a bit of a shame as the street level portion of the restaurant has gorgeous big windows with views of Covent Garden – but never mind, I was there for the company and not the views. We settled in to our table and the wait for our other friend, and amused ourselves with a free glass of Prosecco, thanks to an offer on my O2 Priority Moments app. Stella ordered some free olives courtesy of a different deal, and we were beginning to feel rather pleased with ourselves.

We then got onto consulting the menu. Stella had another offer which was for 3 courses for £15, but restricted to just a few dishes. Whilst I awaited the special Gluten Free Menu, I looked through the list of dishes on the special offer and tried to second guess which would be suitable to me. The choice of starter was either bread or garlic bread, so that was obvious – neither – and then onto main courses. Most pizzas were included in the deal, and I remembered that Zizzi had a gluten free pizza base. It was at this moment that the gluten free menu arrived, and I discovered to my dismay that they no longer do gluten free pizza bases. There was no note as to why the gluten free bases had been discontinued, but whatever the reason, they had been stopped. They were no more. Woe was me.

I tried to cross reference the frankly minimal gluten free menu with the special offer. It transpired that basically my only choice was pasta and tomato sauce with a bit of cheese, which I’m sure was very nice but I decided probably wasn’t worth the £15 deal, especially as I couldn’t have the starter anyway. I figured I was lucky to have the option of some safe dishes in the first place, as it’s more than I get in other places, and settled for a tasty sounding pasta dish with chicken.

Sadly, things took a turn for the worse as a little while after placing my order, the waitress returned and informed me that due to a cross contamination issue, all their gluten free pasta had had to be discarded. So pasta was off the menu. This left risotto or salad. It was pretty late by this point, due to the slightly late arrival of my other friend and some slow service, so a salad just wasn’t going to cut it. I resigned myself to a risotto, and luckily there was more than just the standard mushroom risotto on the menu – chicken and mushroom! It was also more expensive than the pasta.

When the food arrived I have to say it was nothing special. I’m a little biased because risotto is something that I tend to make myself as a quick-and-easy-cop-out-dinner when I’ve had a long day, or with some veg in as a cheap and filling pre-payday eat. So I objected to having to pay more for something I wanted less, and I was not offered the difference as a compensation which was especially annoying as I did not have a choice in the matter. There was literally nothing else I could have chosen at the same or similar price point. I was also well and truly out of the running for the 3 courses for £15 offer, with no eligible starters or main courses included!

The saving grace was definitely the pudding. At this point I thought I’d be lucky to escape with an ice cream or possibly even a fruit salad if I was lucky, but they had a chocolate melt on the menu. Obviously I ordered it, and it was delicious: a perfectly cooked fondant with a melting centre – yum.            

So over all I left feeling disappointed and a little railroaded into a meal which I didn’t actually want (or enjoy) that much in the end. Still, they did give us three glasses of free Prosecco instead of the two contained within the offer I had, and they were very apologetic about the pasta issue. There was no use complaining really, as the staff couldn't do anything about the limited menu or the pasta situation (and also we're British, and we don't do that sort of thing). Also, that chocolate pudding was delightful. Those are the only reasons I’m giving them any marks at all, otherwise it would have been nil, sadly.

Has anyone else eaten in a Zizzi recently? Any good/bad/ugly experiences?

-Rachel

Gluten Free food on prescription

Hi everyone,

Since being diagnosed as a coeliac 5 years ago, I have been able to order various foods on prescription. I started out with a huge variety of different items on there, from flours to pastry mixes, biscuits to lasagne sheets, fusilli to penne, sliced white bread to dinner rolls, and then there were these weird things a bit like sponge fingers…

Over time I refined the list down to the things which I actually ate - surprisingly, turns out I don’t use a pre-packaged pastry mix very often, partly because I don’t often make pastry and partly because the mix already contains an unspecified amount of sugar, making it impossible to use in any normal recipe – and got things down to a pretty select list, which I would then choose a few things from every couple of months.

I generally order a large quantity of items at once, because I am too disorganised to go more frequently. Once a month?! What with the wait for prescriptions, ferrying between doctor and pharmacy, lead time for items to come in, finding the time to fetch items within normal working hours, I’d be constantly managing one part of the process. Which as a disorganised person, is too much. Does anyone have a failsafe way of managing their repeat prescription ordering? I’m considering some kind of Kanban system for low stock and a rolling reminder for the next stage of the process, using average lag time data from previous cycles… (Can you tell what type of work I do?!)

Back to the point. I have recently moved doctors, and my new doctor has fiercely cut back on the products on my repeat prescription. I now have:

• 6 loaves of Newburn Bakehouse (Warburton’s) brown sliced*
• 6 bags of Bialimenta penne pasta
• 2 boxes of Juvela lasagne. I’m not quite sure why this is on here, as I so seldom make lasagne. But never mind, it’s at least making me come up with new and inventive uses for lasagne sheets!

According to the doctor, she recommends an annual review of the items on my prescription and the opportunity to add or subtract items, as well as a general health check. This sounds fairly sensible although the thought of a year with the same few products on the list is a little daunting. I’m thoroughly sick of my 3 items, as good as they are (in particular I would recommend the Newburn bread, if you’re not already eating it by the freezerful).

I’m eagerly awaiting the latest Coeliac UK book for a list of all the products available on prescription before I book my appointment with the doctor. Then I can go armed and ready, and hopefully emerge with a couple of different things to try.

Does anyone have any recommendations for items they get on prescription and particularly enjoy?

*I’ve just read that these will soon be delivered in boxes of 4, according to Warburtons this is for greater flexibility and for those of us with smaller freezers. Any thoughts? I think this means more trips to the pharmacy for me…

-Rachel

My Favourite Supermarkets for Gluten Free Food

Evening all,

Now I know how we all feel about supermarkets- we love to loathe them, and it's a favoured Great British pastime (after discussing the weather) to complain loudly and publicly about them at any given moment. However, the reality is that most of us still do the vast majority of our shopping in them regardless. If know if I could do all my shopping at local co-ops and farmers markets I would, but sadly my resources do not stretch to such luxuries. 

I am however afforded the dubious honour of having a variety of supermarkets within striking distance of my home. Having formed an opinion of their provision of gluten free foods over the past few years, I have a definite ranking system in my mind of those which I prefer to visit. It goes something like this:

1. Sainsbury's - has the most extensive selection of gluten free wares in their aisles. In the bigger stores they have a wide variety of items from cereal to fresh bread, including frozen foods. My recommendation(s): everyday items, frozen margherita pizzas.
2. Marks and Spencer - carries the most deluxe selection of gluten free products. Sadly, this is reflected in the price, and they mix the gluten free items inamongst all the other food which can be a little frustrating. Stock is also highly variable per store. But it's worth the hunt - it's all so tasty! My recommendation(s): party food selection, seeded brown rolls.
3. Waitrose - has an interesting selection of products, mostly at the higher end. You'll find things here that you can't get anywhere else. Also most likely to have interesting chef-type ingredients. Again, you pay the price for this, but it's generally worth it. My recommendation(s): tamari (gluten free soy sauce), fresh sliced loaves.
4. Tesco - expanding as we speak, now stocking Amy's Kitchen and Udi's, as well as some of the usual suspects. Variable selection, even in the bigger supermarkets, but they do tend to carry something in most stores. My recommendation(s): Bonta D'Italia frozen salami pizza, Udi's bagels.
5. Aldi - no dedicated gluten free line as such, but a lot of their products are naturally gluten free and marked as such, which most other supermarkets don't. Everything is such good value that you could eat the best value gluten free meals from here, hands down. My recommendation(s): new milled linseed with goji berries, sunflower and sesame seeds (a sort of cereal or cereal topper), any meal cooked from scratch using good value ingredients
6. Co-op - a small range of gluten free items, and their own brand is fairly decent. But it's by no means comprehensive and it's quite expensive. My recommendation(s): ciabatta rolls, white or brown, porridge oats.
7. Asda - do carry a range of gluten free items, and in the past have introduced some interesting products like gluten free wraps, but the selection is usually small and inconsistent. My recommendation(s): BFree Multigrain Wraps.
8. Morrisons - even in the most giant hangar-sized Morrisons, there never seem to be the actual items on my shopping list, which I can't understand. I invariably end up having to go somewhere else. Their gluten free selection is patchy and contains a lot of biscuits. As much as I like sweet things, man cannot live by biscuits alone. My recommendation(s): leaving and going to Aldi instead.

I should add that I get my bread and pasta on prescription (more on that here) so I'm covered for the basics if all else fails. This does enable me to do the vast majority of my shopping in Aldi, and then top up at one of the higher-priced supermarkets for any special items not carried by my favourite low cost retailer. 

What is your favourite supermarket for buying gluten free foods?

-Rachel

Hello and Welcome

Hi there!

Pleased to make your acquaintance. Firstly, may I encourage you to go and read my About Me page? It's the tab right at the top of the page. You'll be able to get to know me a little better there. Then, why don't you leave me a comment about yourself? You can link to your blog/twitter/instagram if you like, then we can get to know each other even better. Us gluten-freaks have got to stick together, y'know.

So what's the point of all this? Well, as I reeled off a list of restaurants to my rather bemused friend the other day, detailing those which were good, bad, and just plain ugly for me to eat at, she pointed out that perhaps this knowledge may help other coeliacs, especially newly diagnosed ones, if I were to share it on the World Wide Interwebs. Selfishly, I'd also like to keep a record myself of places I've been and meals I've enjoyed, just to make sure my sieve of a brain doesn't forget anything. Finally and importantly, because that's where you come in, I'd like to find other coeliacs who love food as much as I do to celebrate new findings, commiserate dismal failures and sometimes have a good old rant with. 

If you'd like to keep on top of things, you can follow my blog with Bloglovin, find me on Twitter, or just check back here regularly for updates.

Catch y'around!

Coming soon....