Gluten-free in Ottawa

Baker Street cafe

2011-10-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

Someone told me about a new cafe-style restaurant with gluten free baked goods: The Baker Street Cafe. I went there thinking I could just buy the goods. I'm told they might go that way in the future - selling their loaves to the public. I didn't have time to sit and try out anything. Later !

Baker Street Cafe
(613) 761-7171
385 Richmond Rd
Ottawa, ON K2A

Sugar Bush

2011-03-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

We went to Fulton's pancake house and sugar bush today - they serve gluten-free pancakes! They have a dedicated grill at the back, and make them on demand. They had the ingredients list for the beans and it seemed gluten-free to me (the sausages weren't). Nice installation with lots of stuff to keep the kids busy (slides, face painting). We recommend it!

http://www.fultons.ca/

Spices

2011-03-25T15:56:00.001-07:00

"We" did some research this week on spices - we were looking particularly at ground spices such as ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg. We found the following info by contacting the manufacturers:

- No-name brand spices: these are made on lines that also see gluten on them. So not guaranteed gluten-free.

-McCormick's: (from their website, under "contact us")
"None of our single ingredient spices and herbs contain gluten. In addition, all of our extracts, including Pure Vanilla, are gluten-free. Some of our products do contain gluten. When WHEAT is the source, it will always be called out within the ingredient statement, and listed in bold.
We do not maintain a list of gluten-free products, as our formulas change from time to time."

We found the McCormick spices at Superstore.

Bread crumbs and shopping

2009-01-31T08:09:00.000-08:00

(Updated March 2011)

For a while I had problems locating gluten-free bread crumbs. I use them mainly for roasted fish. Sesame seeds also work for fish, but that's a little different. For other uses, I found that corn meal is a good substitute. I think I used to find them at Loblaws (schar brand, www.schaer.com), but no more. I also used to find them at Rainbow Foods, but not consistently.

Nowadays I go to the Natural food pantry to get my crumbs. Recently, they've come out with their house brand of gluten-free products line that includes bread crumbs, breads and baked goodies. Also graham cracker crumbs and pie crusts. In addition, they also have a good selection of frozen breads etc., pasta, soup stocks, breakfast cereals and cookies. I just discovered O'doughs flaxseed buns, and they are yummy! My other favourite I can find there are Glutino's English muffins.

Natural Food Pantry

205 Richmond Rd
Ottawa, ON, K1Z 6W4
613-728-1255
442 Hazeldean Road
Kanata, ON, K2L 1V2
613-836-3669
2277 Riverside Drive (Billings Bridge shopping centre)
Ottawa, ON, K1H 7X6
613-737-9330
http://naturalfoodpantry.ca

Rainbow foods

1487 Richmond Rd.

Ottawa ON K2B 6R9

613-726-9200

www.rainbowfoods.net

La Boite a Grains (in Gatineau) carries a good selection of GF flours. You can get a 10% discount if you buy a small crate's worth. Also the place where I get the GF beer (La Messagere). They now have a red version!

www.laboiteagrains.com (2 locations in Gatineau)

And as I mentioned, the Loblaws is another place to go for GF products. They are well stocked in breakfast cereals, pasta, soup stocks, soy sauce, and flours. No Glutino brown rice flour though. But there might be some from Bob's Red Mill brand, the products of which I'm discovering (the "Mighty tasty hot cereal" is not bad!).

Loblaws (superstore)

190 Richmond Road

Ottawa ON K1Z 6W6

613-722-5890

www.superstore.ca

More pasta

2008-08-04T18:54:00.001-07:00

La Dolce Vita on Preston now has a gluten-free pasta menu, in addition to the pizzas. Tried the lasagna. Not bad!

Eating out (pasta!)

2007-01-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

Caffe Ventuno is *the* place to go and have gluten-free pasta. Staying home and making yourself spaghetti is all fine and well, but there is no substitute for going to an italian place and having those great sauces with it.

Caffe Ventuno (in Nicastro's)
1355 Wellington St. W, (613) 729-9121

Breakfasts

2005-11-02T17:31:00.000-08:00

So you've got a coeliac friend who's coming over for breakfast. Gosh, every kind of breakfast food you know is made of wheat. What to do?

In a pinch, fruit and plain yoghurt (and maple syrup, say) will do fine, provided the yoghurt is one of those I mentioned. But you can do better.

Toast

Toast is easy. Toast is actually the instance where gluten-free bread makes the best impression of being real bread. So you need to have gluten-free bread handy (or the Glutino bagels, they're excellent), and a clean toaster. I mention this because you shouldn't serve wheat crumbs with the toast. Check the butter too.

Cereal

Cereal is trickier. Most regular brand cereal, and that includes Rice Crispies and Corn flakes, contain wheat. That's right, you probably have nothing in the house that will do. Fortunately, there is now a large selection of Gluten-free breakfast cereals, hot and cold, available at health food stores and Loblaws.

Oatmeal? Oatmeal is the subject of hot debate. Oats are not supposed to contain gluten, but it seems it is difficult to obtain pure oats, since usually wheat and oats are rotating crops, that is they are grown in the same fields and hence you may find wheat in your oats. At least that's what I hear. I just avoid them.

A substitute to oatmeal is quinoa. You can get "quinoa flakes" (available in health food stores) that serves pretty much the same function as instant oatmeal. I think I now prefer cooking up whole quinoa (like rice, twice the amount of water than quinoa) and dressing it up copiously with fried apples and bananas and cream and sugar. Recipe to follow.

Pancakes

Here is another application where a rice flour mix can do a very decent job at replacing wheat flour. I use the same flour mix for everything, it's the one I've given below. I haven't tried waffles, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. Obviously you need separate pans if you're going to make gluten-full pancakes for yourself.

Eggs and bacon

If the gluten-free market were big enough, you'd see a label saying that eggs and bacon are "naturally gluten free". Of course you can serve those! As for peameal bacon, I don't know. Who makes that peameal anyway? Just get ordinary bacon.

Eating out (Asian food)

2005-08-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Eating out is always a bit of a problem. One has to play a bit of "twenty questions" with the waiter about the ingredients, but even after that there is the issue of cross-contamination which is difficult to assess and control. I am fortunate in that I can tolerate some gluten intake without serious problems, which leaves me free to experiment somewhat.

Asian food is pretty much gluten free at the core, with the one notable exception being soy sauce. This effectively bars most chinese food and restaurants from the menu except perhaps for some of the soups.

Japanese

Japanese food is problematic for the same reason as for chinese, although soy sauce appears more often 'on the side' than embedded as an ingredient. Satay is out (sauce), tempura is out (batter), but we're left at least with all the sushi and sashimi (provided you avoid the soy sauce, or bring your own). Now the only variables here are the nori (seaweed) and the wasabi (the green paste). I've seen nori with wheat listed as an ingredient, as well as without, and I suspect the wasabi can pose a problem too, akin to that of mustard that often have flour mixed into the ground mustard (or so I have read - more on that another time). So if you wish to avoid nori, the rolls are out (and that's a shame), which leaves you with the nigiri-sushi (just a piece of fish sitting on a blob of rice), and of course the sashimi (just the fish). Now if you want to avoid the wasabi as well, you're in deep because they almost always make the nigiri-sushi with a bit of wasabi under the fish, which leaves you with the sashimi as your only option. Now, the wasabi apparently does have disinfecting properties (sorry I have no sources to quote here, comments welcome) so it may be unwise to go for the raw fish without the wasabi, I don't know. But then again you could find a brand of wasabi and soy sauce that you trust, bring'em with you and ask that the sushi be made without wasabi.

A good japanese (japanese-korean) restaurant that I've been to is Joy restaurant, 141 Laurier Ave. W. I only had the sushi but my fellow diners thought the non-gluten-free food was fantastic.

Another mixed-asian (chinese-thai-vietnamese) I had tried just recently is the Mekong. Amazing food, and a busy place sought by a well-off clientele, the likes of which I had never seen on this part of Somerset Street. There is a lot of soy sauce on the menu, but I did manage to get something interesting - stuffed eggplant, hold the soy sauce and no flour please. The contents of the stuffing (ground meat based) was never brought up, but I think it was OK. The waitress wasn't particularly knowledgeable about gluten or wheat (she proposed a wonton soup in stead of another soup I was interested in), but was showing the proper level of concern for my case. I would recomment it, but be ready to play twenty questions.

Indian

Indian is very gluten-free except for the naan bread and the samosas. Pakoras are made of chick pea flour, and there is generally no flour involved in the curries or tandoori chicken. So most of the menu is in theory available to the celiac. But there will probably be some pre-ground spices involved in the preparation (for one, I've never seen tumeric available in any other form) so in theory there might be some gluten traces somewhere.

I like going to Haveli's (buffet or sit-down, any location), A Passage to India (544 Rideau) - go for the menu items, especially vegetarian, and avoid the buffet, the New Nupur (589 Bank) for something different, and the big indian buffet place downtown on Laurier (sorry I forgot the name).

[skip this paragraph if you don't want to read about my bowels] I go for indian food a lot myself, and I don't find it has detrimental effects on my metabolism. I do get a bit of a kick in the gut from the stuff (meaning an added fluidity in the bowel movement and maybe some gas) especially if I go for extra spicy. So although I'm not 100% sure it's the spices' natural effect rather than a touch of gluten, it hasn't been a big problem for me either way. Your mileage may vary.

The Nasa food centre (an indian food store Booth and Somerset) make mean pakoras. Much better than the packages ones you find at the Herb and Spice. I'd venture to say they're the best in town, but I haven't had much of those in restaurants.

Vietnamese

Vietnamese is also pretty much gluten-free at the core. I avoided any kind of soup for a while (in general, not just the vietnamese places), because most of the powdered broths and campbell's consommé are not gluten-free, and I figured that the cheapest-easiest way to make soup was to use one of those (less of a concern if you go to finer, more expensive restaurants). Apparently I was wrong, because I did finally ask about the soup base at a couple of 'Pho' places and have been told they make it from scratch, although there is fish sauce added. At Pho-Bo-Ga-La I've asked to see the fish sauce package so I could check the ingredients - it passed. So I've been going to New Pho-Bo-Ga-La (Close to Booth on Somerset, North side) and had the basic beef soups with no ill effects (you still have to stay away from the hoisin sauce and the soups with egg noodles).

Gluten-free flour mixes

2005-07-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't tried them all, but so far I haven't been a great fan of pre-made GF flour mixes. I mix my own from this recipe, based on one found in Bette Hagman's "The gluten-free gourmet cooks fast and healty" (sounds like an endorsement, but the three-line recipe on page 33 is the only thing I use in this book)

- 6 cups rice flour (white, brown or mixed)
- 2 cups potato starch flour
- 1 cup tapioca starch flour
- 9 teaspoons of guar gum (i. e. 1 tsp per cup of flowery stuff)

I use the Glutino flours (see Bread section). I forgot where I got the guar gum, but it can be found gluten-free too.

With this flour mix I'll do anything from pancakes to bread. I'll give you my bread recipe later.

Sausage

2005-07-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

You basically have to stay away from supermarket sausage, but at least there they have the ingredients list so you can check.

It seems that the meat shops generally make sausage without using wheat. In the market, Aubrey's makes non-wheat-filled sausages, and the Sausage kitchen has a flier outlining the gluten-freedom (or was it wheat-freedom?) of their sausages. In Westboro, Saslove's sausages are wheat-free. Of course, I'm always wondering about the spices they put in there (I tend to stay away from any kind of ground spices), but that dosen't stop me from eating them.

Bread

2005-07-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

Let's get one thing clear. There is nothing you can buy (that I know of) that is even remotely comparable to fresh bread. Nothing. The closest I have experienced so far is making my own bread (with a bread maker), just when it comes out of the machine. On the other hand, most of the gluten-free bread make excellent toast.

I have become attached to the Glutino brand for bread, as well as for the flours. I especially like the raisin bread.

http://www.glutino.com/

(on a side note, it seems Glutino lets you order products online. I'll let you know how that works out)

Other brands I've tried:

I quite like(d) Sterk's Bakery italian bread. Donuts (especially reheated) weren't bad either. I found it at Rainbow Foods (on Richmond at Carling) but I have now moved away from that area so it's less convenient for me to go there. The other reason for the switch is the more "professional" image Glutino projects. I was harboring some uncertainty about the extent of gluten-freedom of the Sterks' because for a long while I was experiencing some intestinal problems for which I couldn't pin down the cause. I haven't had problems since switching to the Glutino breads and flours. Comments welcome on this one.

I can find the Glutino Breads frozen at the natural food store in Westgate mall. Some of the flours can be found at the super Loblaws on Richmond (at Kirkwood), but a more complete selection of flours can be found at La Boite a Grains in Gatineau (St-Joseph just north of the exit to the casino).

Ice cream and yoghurt

2005-07-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

I've been shunning "modified milk products" that appear in yoghurts and ice creams (in addition to "modified corn starch"). I haven't done a lot of systematic testing, but on one occasion I've had a yoghurt containing "modified milk ingredients" but no "modified corn starch", and had cramps from it. So. Breyer's Natural ice cream used to be my staple source, but now they've changed the recipe and "modified milk ingredients" appear. I've switched to Ben and Jerry's now.

For yoghurt, for reasons mentioned above, I stick to Libery plain yoghurt (regular or organic) and Astro Original Balkan Style yoghurt. I find both of these at the Herb and Spice. The Loeb stocks Astro but not Liberty. I think Loblaw's stock both brands.

For sour cream, I use Liberty as well.

For cream cheese, Liberty or Western cremery. Kraft Philly cheese (*not* the light version of it) works too.

Liberty link (not much to see, the other links above point to the specific products)

Pasta

2005-07-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Gluten-free pasta is easy to find. Nature food stores and even Loblaws (in the organic food section) stock them.

My favourite brand (also the most widely available) is Tinkyada rice pasta.

http://www.tinkyada.com/

I think rice pasta are the best. Almost like real pasta, especially for spaghetti.

Another brand I find just as good (spinach rice pasta) is from Riztopia (made in Canada). I probably get it at the Westgate mall's natural food store and maybe at the Big Loblaw's too (Richmond and Kirkwood).

Of course, there are all the asian rice noodles, but as a substitute to wheat pasta (i. e. italian style) they are a little different than the above brands. Also gluten-free certification is maybe questionable and difficult to ascetain for the truly asian brands. But what do I know? I've seen the "Thai kitchen" brand listed on one of the gluten-free product listings (somewhere!).

I've tried other pasta too. Bean pasta is passable (strong taste) and potato pasta is downright horrible (very mushy).

Beer and Pizza

2005-07-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Beer and pizza are two things I've most bemoaned the loss of when I switched to a gluten-free diet. I can make my own pizza, and I know a specialty shop in Laval (north of Montreal) that makes a good gluten-free pizza, but so far eating out has been out of the question. But hark and behold! The ottawa celiac association has made additions to its restaurant list, worthwhile additions, featuring gluten-free pizza!

http://www.celiac.ottawa.on.ca/restaurants.htm

La Dolce Vita (180 Preston Street 233-6239) is first on my list of places to try. I've been there a number of times before with friends, condemned to having a salad while my friends would invevitably have number of mouth-watering-looking pizzas. No longer! I shall go and try them as soon as I can.

For beer, there is only one product in existence that I know of: a buckwheat and rice beer that is certified (or at least marketed as) gluten-free, La Messagere, from a brewery near Trois-Rivieres, Les Bieres de la Nouvelle-France:

http://www.lesbieresnouvellefrance.com/

There were a number of places selling it in Hull (La Boite a Grains being one) but now I noticed that the LCBO carries it. It is on-shelf only at the big store on Rideau and King Edward, but my local store told me they can order one or two cases if I ask for it. They won't stock it, though.

LCBO search

Addendum Aug. 10th - Nothing very relevant to add, but found a web page about statements from Budweiser about Bud light being gluten-free. Apparently the claim wouldn't be of much use to celiacs.