Poolside service

Today I'm pretending to live in the lap of luxury. While my husband is attending a conference at the J.W. Marriott here in Orlando, I get to hang out by the pool. Oh darn, right? This place is incredible. The pool area is huge and the areas are all connected by a lazy river. The river has waterfalls and fountains, and the vegetation is beautiful. You don't even have to leave your seat to eat or drink. The servers come to you! As I lie in the shade with a breeze blowing, I think, is there any place I'd rather be right now? Nope! Admittedly, I'd rather be here with Aaron, and I thoroughly enjoy the times when he is able to join me out here. My only concern in this venture was eating. I figured a fancy hotel like this had to have something gluten free, but I didn't know if I could eat outside, or if I'd have to find a super pricey place inside. Luckily, this is a very conscientious hotel. Immediately, we found a little place that all sorts of gluten free snacks and breakfast bars available for purchase. I really wanted some real food, though, so I decided to investigate the outdoor restaurant, Quench. Definitely more a bar than an eatery, the drink list is probably three times larger than the food menu. The cocktails look amazing. I ordered a melon mojito. It was quite enjoyable. The server helping me was very nice, and as soon as I mentioned gluten, he was ready with available options and assurances that the kitchen staff was well equipped to handle allergies. He even offered to cook fries separately for me, since they fry everything together. I haven't taken up that offer yet, but I plan to do so before I leave. For my lunch, I chose to order a blackened fish salad, except that I had it grilled plain, because blackened seasoning and I do not get along very well. What intrigued me most about the salad was the unique toppings. It comes with fish, feta cheese, pickled onion, watermelon, and citrus vinaigrette. It was good. Very good. I ate it in my chair, and since it was a time when Aaron was free, I got to enjoy his company. Like I said, before I leave, I plan to get some fries and one more cocktail, which is a peach flavored rum concoction. Good day! Nice pre-vacation vacation.

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Udi-licious Pizza!

Tonight my friends and I had a make your own pizza party. They bought regular crust, and I brought some Udi gluten free crust. I hadn't tried it before, and I was excited. I made my pizza first, because we wanted to make sure that the shared toppings didn't get cross-contaminated. I thawed the crust, added toppings, and baked it for about 7 minutes. My excitement over this crust was definitely warranted! This is the best gf crust I've ever eaten. It has a soft texture and has elasticity that most gf crusts do not have. Absolutely fantastic. Polish that off with some flan from Publix, and I call that a perfect meal!

Mochi Madness

Oh, Mochi, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
1)You have the best taro yogurt I have ever eaten in my life (and I'm a bit of a taro yogurt nut).
2)You have delicious mochi ice cream balls (which, unfortunately, I do not think are gluten free...sigh... I did so love the red bean flavor.).
3)Your downtown location is convenient and pleasant. It is also by my favorite movie theater.
4)Your staff is friendly and helpful.
5)You always have the best movies playing in your store. (Tonight was Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory AND Charlotte's Web.)
6)You now serve boba tea.

What? Boba tea! Amazing! Taro yogurt AND the best beverage ever? Yes! Mochi Downtown has boba tea. Actually, they have boba tea and boba smoothies in many delicious flavors for our drinking pleasure.

One should note, however, that the Mochi yogurt is made with Danactive yogurt, and Dannon's gluten NONstatement states that while none of their yogurt is formulated with gluten containing products, they cannot guarantee that their stabilizing agents (referring to alcohol stabalizers, which may or may not be derived from corn instead of wheat, rye, barley, or oat) do not contain trace amounts of gluten. I will say that I have never had an issue with just their yogurt. I have, however, had issues when I've eaten their toppings. I suspect that they cut their fruit on the same cutting board as their pound cake, cookie dough, etc. I have no concrete proof of this, but I do know that I've only had a reaction when I've added toppings to the yogurt.

Fish disasters

I eat fish pretty frequently, so when I saw gluten free fish in the frozen section, I had to try it. The product is called Fish Creations and it's by a company called Morey. I chose the Mediterranean flavored tilapia. I had to soak it in cold water for thirty minutes to thaw it, and then I had the choice to grill it, bake it, or microwave it. The first time I made this fish, I decided to grill it. I thawed it and grilled the fish for the instructed amount of time, and it came out hard and rubbery. I tried to eat it, but I couldn't. I figured that I might have been to blame, so to give the product a fair chance, I decided to try the fish a different way. I thawed my fish, but this time I baked the fish. Since following the directions yielded sorely overcooked fish, I decided to cook it a shorter amount of time and then check it. It was cooked with the shorter time, so I plated the fish. While the fish was a better consistency, it was still very rubbery. I am done trying with this fish. Fish Creations is a no go. Looks like the only fish I'll be eating is fresh. There's no easy way out.

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Gluten Free Stir Fry

I love Asian cuisine. Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese...I love it! So, I'm always a bit bummed about the whole most soy sauces having gluten in them thing. I can eat food at Pei Wei and PF Chang, but that gets expensive, and frankly, it's boring to eat out all the time. I love cooking at home, and I'm excited that I've found an easy way to make delicious stir fry! I use a brand of Stir Fry sauce mix called Sun Bird that is made with gluten free ingredients. The company does mention that it is made in factory that processes wheat, but I have never had trouble with it, and I'm pretty sensitive. They have many different types of sauce mixes available like beef and broccoli, sweet and sour, stir fry sauce, and Szechuan sauce. Tonight I made the stir fry sauce. All I did was add sugar, water, and soy sauce (San-J gluten free, although La Choy is gluten free as well) to the sauce mix and poured it on the vegetables I chose to use. The packet gives suggestions for fresh vegetables to use, but I was feeling kind of lazy and used a frozen vegetable mix that had broccoli, bell pepper, onion, mushroom, baby corn, and snow peas. It was great! I put it over some rice, and had a quick, easy, and delicious dinner! Tomorrow, I'll have the left-overs for lunch. Yum! Now, all I have to do is figure out gluten free egg rolls. God, I miss those! Any suggestions?

I can eat at Olive Garden?

Olive Garden used to be one of my favorite restaurants. I LOVE pasta. And their arrabiatta sauce is to die for. So, of course, I was pretty upset when I could no longer have my endless salad and breadsticks with linguini arrabiatta. Sigh. I think I had gone almost a year and a half without setting foot in an Olive Garden because of my diet. Then, I heard they had a gluten free menu. I wasn't too excited, though, because I've gone to other Italian restaurants that have one just to discover that it had no pasta on the menu. I mean, seriously ? That's why one goes to an Italian restaurant in the first place. So, a while went by, and I didn't care enough to check it out. However, I'm a curious person by nature, and I have this little blog here, so after a few weeks, I had to investigate. I was shocked and pleased to find both the salad (without croutons, obviously) and pasta on the small menu. Thanks to a friend who will always support an Olive Garden trip, I ate there on Friday. I ordered the salad and penne marinara (the only sauce that's gluten free). The salad was lovely, and because I had no croutons, I got an entire bowl for myself. To be fair, it was smaller than everyone else's, but it was mine! The penne was OK, but it completely fell apart, and some of it was crunchy. The sauce was good, though. It's nothing I'd crave, but it is good to know that if my friends want to eat there, I can eat there, too and not be a problem because of my dietary needs.

Knowledge - 4.5 stars
Accommodation - 3 stars
Taste - 2.5 stars

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