Dover - La Scala

From what I can tell there aren't many chain restaurants in Dover, and with a 6am ferry crossing in the morning, a La Tasca or Prezzo would have been a god send last Thursday night when we just needed a quick meal before an early night.

A lot of the pubs and restaurants also seemed to insist on net curtains, which I would normally consider a bad thing, but was proved wrong with La Scala who have gluten free pasta as a choice on their menu. I ordered the Scialatielli Alla Siciliana, which was pasta cooked with swordfish, onions, tomatoes, basil and white wine. Simple, but very yummy.

La Scala has a lovely Italian feel and almost tricked us into believing we were abroad already. We only remembered our early start in time to stop us ordering a second bottle of wine!

http://www.lascalarestaurant.org.uk/
19 High Street, Dover

Goblin Abroad - Prague

Prague - famous for goulash, snitznel, dumplings and beer halls. The ideal destination for stag parties, but not necessary coeliacs.

But who needs a beer hall when there is a 100% gluten free restaurant around the corner.

Na Zlaté křižovatce is a little way out of the centre of Prague, but really easy to get to on the subway - just head to Florenc and it's around the corner.

The four owners each have a coeliac in their family and as a result have learnt to adapt traditional Czech food to be gluten free. Here is the beef goulash I polished off for lunch...

We also had gluten free bread to start, and as if the choice of dumplings, schnitzels and strudels wasn't enough, I also had a draft gluten free beer.
Here I am tucking into an aptly named Celia beer...

We did actually go to the oldest beer hall in Prague called Flecku which dates back to 1499. There isn't bar, just a man in little shorts holding a tray of beers who makes his way around the beer hall. I politely declined a very dark beer from the man in shorts, and was possibly the first person to do so in about 500 years!

Supernoodles

I use to live off Supernoodles. Especially during my time at University. I would sometimes venture out to the students union for cheesy chips, but my cooking ability back then only reached as far as heating noodles in water and adding a flavoured sachet to it. The flavour was usually bacon, which resulted in Frazzle burps for the next few days at least.

I went off them a bit though. Nothing to do with them not being gluten free. But once I got so drunk on quadruple vodkas that I was sick and supernoodles came out of my nose. Gross. I soon learnt to cook after that - even Pot Noodles made me feel queasy.

I now feel ready to try some noodle based convenience food again and it looks like Tiger Tiger have come to the gluten free rescue with these Thai microwave noodles.

Christmas Goblin

All families have their traditions at Christmas. Some families go to midnight mass, some insist on watching the Queens speech, and there are those strange people who don't open the presents until after Christmas dinner. But I'm yet to meet another family who eat chocolate biscuits for breakfast on Christmas day.

Keen to keep this tradition going, this year I provided a selection of gluten free biscuits that put that old McVities tin to shame.

Ingredients for Christmas day breakfast :-

Pink Panther Gluten Free Pink Wafers

Trufree chocolate fingers

Doves hazelnut cookies

Trufree custard creams

Trufree chocolate digestives

Birds Eye Potato waffles...

They're waffly gluten free

Goblin Abroad - Milan

I was treated to a wonderful romantic trip to Milan for Valentines day this year. As pure coincidence, Spurs were also playing AC Milan the next day, so my boyfriend suggested catching the match as well.

I thought I might be in for a few days of salads and sneaky rice cakes in restaurants, but was in for a massive surprise when we found Be Bop Restaurant with a gluten free pizza and pasta menu.

Here I am enjoying a pizza and beer in Italy - so tasty!



And here I am next to a poor waxwork Ruud Gullit - not so tasty.



To fill our pudding pockets we went to Grom a few times. Their pistachio gelato was amazing, even in the rain...


http://www.grom.it/eng/celiachia.php

Abby and the Gluten Free Factory

I had the best gluten free day ever on Saturday. It started with the postman delivering a sample of Juvela’s Special Flakes. I’m not sure how they came up with that name for the cereal, probably something to do with them being for people with a ’special’ diet.

Then I met the Cake Crusader - a real superhero, although she didn’t have her pants on over her apron. She had a cake stall at the Harehatch Sheeplands market, and makes the best gluten free millionaire short cake I’ve ever tasted. All of her cakes are gluten and wheat free, so we brought four cupcakes, a brownie and a millionaire shortcake. There are none left today.

Already loaded with yummy cakes, we thought we’d have a quick look in the farm shop. It was like some kind of gluten free version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Clive’s pies, Dietary specials Yorkshires and pasties in the freezer, Mrs Crimbles, Kallo rice cakes, Bryon Bay cookies and so much more, even ice cream cones . I could have stayed there all day, but was in real danger of becoming Augustus Gloop!