Shophouse

Alright, I hate doing this. I really do. I know that most of the currently imaginary reader-base of this blog is scattered around the country or the world. I have a few DC-Specific things I could talk about and I'm tempted to now and again because it's my life. This is my every day, or at least my every breakfast and/or lunch, and this is my blog, and maybe, just maybe, sometimes I want to tell you people what I had for lunch even if I know you probably can't have it. The good news in this case, though, is that maybe, just maybe, someday you'll be able to.

So, we all know about Chipotle. I'll talk about it at some point. It's a great option for us on the go. It's also one of those restaurants I never gave much thought to before having to become Gluten-Free. Well, the owners of Chipotle are trying out another new restaurant here in DC, and it's sort of a treasure trove for we of the unable-to-eat-gluten tribe. Shophouse is located in Dupont Circle, right next to some Salad place that I think people like and the BGR Burger Joint which is a perfectly acceptable burger place if you're cool with not having a bun (and hey, we can talk about that later too!). It's also maybe a three minute walk from Hello Cupcake! (their exclamation point, not mine), which if we're going to go on DC places will be on the docent, because, you know, cupcakes. It's a good twenty minute walk from work for me, but it's totally worth it.

It runs on the same sort of formula as Chipotle. You tell them what you want for the counter-service. You start with a base of rice/noodles/etc. Add in meat (lamb, chicken, tofu and Meatballs!), a vegetable, a sauce (all too spicy for my blood, but I'm very, very weak), a garnish (beats me), and then toasted rice or garlic or something. For me, it's almost always rice, meatballs, this vaguely sweet and garlicky charred corn, and then a metric ton of the toasted rice. I have no idea what toasted rice is, but it's a little sweet and crunchy and awesome.

Anyway, the point to this, to all of it, is that the place is ENTIRELY gluten free. Entirely. You can get rice-based gluten free meatballs, which is absolutely worth the walk because the texture of them is something I miss. All of this, with a fairly quick moving line, is about $7.50, which is totally reasonable for the amount of food you get and the fact it's all gluten free.

All in all, it's a pretty great, convenient little place. The downside is that there's one in DC, one coming to Bethesda, and apparently, one in Hollywood, so well, I guess it's good if you're a tourist. It also, to me, makes it seem like the first store was enough of a success that they are trying more. There's hope yet for the rest of you.

Snacks (the First)

So you're diagnosed with Celiac or with some sort of terrible sensitivity or just some nagging ache or ailment and the doc says "Hey, let's have you give the gluten-free lifestyle a try." You're suddenly awash in a world without staples. Look, family was having pasta last night. They were having penne. I was having gf penne (made from corn, not so great) and I see my kid eating a piece of bread with butter with his pasta and I wanted it. A lot. It's the simplest food in the world, just a piece of $1.17 a loaf whitebread. It probably wasn't even butter. It was probably Crock or something.

The point is this. I'm not a huge guy by any means but I am a guy who cares about food. Sometimes that means I eat when I am bummed. Snack options are key. My go to snack, if I had a choice of anything? Those Snyder's Honey Mustard and Onion pretzel pieces. I'm not posting a picture. It's too sad. We definitely can't have those anymore. Also, no SunChips, no on most prepackaged Chex Mix, no PRINGLES, because, you know, potato chips totally need gluten, right?

There are choices though. First and foremost? Popcorn. Popcorn is great and you can do a lot of things with it. Personally, I like drenching with butter and salt and taking a year off my life, but there's also Parmesan cheese or making your own caramel corn or whatever. It's totally gluten free, can be as healthy or not healthy as you want and air poppers really aren't that expensive.  It takes maybe two minutes to pop popcorn. I'm lazy but I'm not so lazy that I'll take the hit in quality for the microwave stuff. There are lines and there are limits. Still, let's say you want something interesting that's even easier:

I give you PopCrunch. This stuff is fairly new; it's been out for six months or so. You can quite often find it on sale for a reasonable price. It's not all that bad for you relatively, and it's totally addictive. Oh yeah, Gluten-Free too. I've only had the Brown Sugar Cinnamon which is pretty much what it sounds like and the White and Sharp Cheddar Mix which is sort of like Kettle Corn covered with ridiculous cheese powder. Totally the way to go.

Guess what? We can have Dortios! Sort of. We can definitely have the Nacho Cheese sort. Sort of. Some of the Frito-Lays Products are totally Gluten Free (Here's a list). Some are just made without Gluten ingredients but could still be on the same lines as Sun Chips or what not. Eat at your own risk, but I certainly have never had a problem. I know there are some brands which have Gluten. Google before eating if you want to get fancy with it.

What else? I have to save some things for another one of these, you know. Okay how about:

There are a lot of sweet potato chips out there that we can eat and a lot of them are pretty good and again, relatively healthy for you (especially compared to, let's say, Doritos). The Green Giant ones came out earlier this year. There's a Zesty Cheddar Veggie Chip variety that we CAN'T eat but the Sea Salt Sweet Potato ones are pretty addictive and pretty safe too. I see them on sale all the time. Usually either they or the PopCrunch are on sale so I alternate accordingly.

There are other things and we'll get to them. It's quite possible that you can't have your very favorite snack anymore but you can still munch away your sorrows with a lot of other great options, I promise.

Pizza

I've mentioned it before, but the second most frustrating thing about being gluten-free is the lack of immediate availability of food on the run. Do you remember easy options? You know. Easy lunch options, easy dinner options, something that will give you good leftovers, will reheat well, can be eaten cold for breakfast, can be accentuated with a bazillion toppings, even tiny fish which is insane on paper, let me tell you. I guess that's all one option, but it's the best food on the run in the entire world: pizza.

It's also totally and absolutely cut off from us, or at least one aspect of it is. The American Local Pizza place is an amazing thing. I spent a year in England, London to be exact and these places just didn't exist. These are places where you can get pizza by the slice or by the pie, subs/cheesesteaks, chicken fingers/wings, gyros or italian food depending on the denomination. Inexpensive, quick, versatile and usually leaps and bounds better than your chain pizza places (Dominos, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, etc). Almost anywhere I've been in the States has a plethora of them in a small area so you can pick and choose and find the best one. Near us we had one which had this Macaroni Pie which I will actually not even describe to you people, because it would be cruel as most people reading this, myself included, can't have it. Just take my word for it. It was awesome.

Pizza is also one of the most inexpensive dinner options in the world. Those little Totino's party pizzas? They're like a buck, $1.50 each. Sure, they're not great, but you put some Doritos on them and hope for the best and for the price you can't beat that (Did you know we can have most Doritos? We totally can. Not the pizzas anymore, but definitely the Doritos). That's totally cut off to us. Oh sure, we can get a quick little pizza you can get in an oven; it'll be gluten free too! It'll just have a really terrible crust and be something more like eight dollars for a pizza that's even smaller than one of the Totino's sub-two-dollar pies.

But wait, we have more options! There's Domino's. Domino's have Gluten-Free pizzas. I saw it on TV. I read it on the internet. It's true. Alright, look, so I am not the sort of guy who cares a ton about contamination if it doesn't mess me up and I don't think I'm getting hit by it every meal. I'm not someone who is a snob in most ways, and I know that we can't be choosers all the time, or even most of the time. I am not eating Domino's Gluten-Free Pizza. I'm not. It's not happening. I could be desperate and it still wouldn't happen. I don't want to eat Domino's regular pizza. I'd be happy to talk to you about the cultural wonder that is the Noid (and the 7-Up Spot, even though I don't want to drink 7-Up either. Does 7-Up even still exist? Apparently it's owned by Dr. Pepper Snapple group. I had no idea that the same company just focused on Dr. Pepper and Snapple. That's a kind of weird synergy. Ah, anyway.). Yes, I would talk about the noid. No i am not eating Domino's Gluten-Free Pizza. A) That just can't be good for you and B) that just can't be good.

So no party pizzas and no quick delivery pizza. What's left for us? Well we could make our own. It's not hard to buy the materials to make your own dough or even a pre-made pizza crust at the usual suspects for specialty stores, but come on. If you were up for that sort of thing, you wouldn't be here. Granted, it's tempting. it really is. I get tempted by it sometimes, because, you know, pizza.

Thankfully, we have at least one national chain that does a pretty good job with things.

I never liked Uno's as a kid. They do Chicago Deep Dish, all inverted with the cheese mixed in with the sauce and it was not my thing. That is totally irrelevant though. They also do thin slice and more than that, they do gluten-free thin slice. It's just cheese or pepperoni and only one size but they have a pretty great double-deal, at least at my local branch where you can get two for $14 or so which more than feeds my family with some small amount of leftovers for later. The pizza itself is pretty good. The crust is flakier than you'd like but it's not bad at all and it's never triggered me in any way. It's also much, much better when you have it in the restaurant than but the double deals don't apply then. The manager usually comes out to deliver it personally when you order, which is always a nice touch. Unfortunately, for us, the closest one is twenty minutes away and right at the mall, so it's always pretty busy. Still, it's nice to have an option, as I'm sure you all know.

BONUS: They have Udi's buns now too, so if you have an Uno's near you, that's another burger option. I'll do a full write up on various burger places at some point though.

Other Local Places

And that's kind of it for the family dining choices. Bertucci's has a pretty big gluten-free menu but it's totally sans pizza (and anything else you'd actually want for the most part). What's left then is local chains and with this I can only be so much help.

For instance, in DC (and weirdly enough in NC too) we have Fuel which provides a GF pizza that's more expensive than Uno's but also somewhat better and far more open toppings-wise. There are a few other choices like Ella's Wood Fired Pizza which is by the Portrait Gallery and has 10 inch GF pizzas (for two dollars more, of course). District of Pi is right around there too. I always wanted to try the Comet Ping Pong pizza place too but I never quite had the opportunity, and then there's the Open City Coffeehouse and Dinner by the Zoo. So there are options. I'm in a city during the day which makes it a little easier, though all of these places are pretty spread out and Fuel is the only reasonable lunch option for me. 

My choices at home are a bit harder, but there are some other ones, usually a little more high end. What I would suggest is that you google "GF pizza" and your town. You might be surprised what you come up with. 

And hey, if anyone HAS had a good experience with the Domino's pizza, chime in. I might not believe you but I will at least listen.