PF Chang's is good for Chinese. In and Out Burger, the burgers can be made "protein style" wrapped in lettuce, and you tell them you have a food allergy (that is what they said to tell the order taker) to whatever you're trying to avoid, so you would need to visit the website and see what normally goes on the burger will do or not. I tell them it is a "wheat allergy" and they do fine. Their fries are the only thing that they fry in their oil, so the fries are safe. There is Mikuni's for sushi. There is a very good gluten free bakery in Cameron Park (east of Folsom) called Azna's. Old Spaghetti Factory has a small but very good gluten free option, you can get several of their sauces over gluten free noodles (the ones here serve spiral shaped gluten free noodles so there is another visual "safeguard"), a chicken breast, and a salad and the ice cream dessert. BJ's Brewhouse (family food chain, several locations) has a gluten free menu (ask for it at the hostess station) and they have a gluten free pizza that you can get many of their toppings on. You can also get salads, potato, or other things, but I have just had the gluten free pizza, the salad, and the gluten free "Pizooki," which is a freshly baked sort of giant chocolate chip cookie-brownie with a scoop of ice cream on top. Specify the gluten free version.
There is a fish and seafood restaurant called "Scott's on the River" which is a little pricier, but they have a gluten free menu and they are REALLY good. For frozen yogurt in a cup, I have had good luck with the OMG It's Yogurt. I have tried other chains, and have had small hit and miss reactions to something which I am not sure of. With these yogurt places, ask for the ingredients book at the counter, to check the list of ingredients for each flavor. I tend to stick to the vanilla, which seems to always come out of the same dispenser. I try to avoid the ones which seem to specialize in cones or have an awful lot of crumbs laying around and seem to be sticky - the one frozen yogurt shop closer to where I live, looks like a cross contamination nightmare, and they had trouble understanding what I meant when I asked to see the ingredients list. We sort of backed out of there, slowly.
If you are up in the Lake Tahoe area, there is the Drunken Monkey sushi place near Truckee (north end of the lake). Menu redo makes it just a little bit funkier to read ("items marked with # are gluten free" and it's a Japanese symbol ) and it's very good, except lately I would not recommend the spicy tuna right now, as they keep putting this weird onion flavor in it.
If you are at the opposite end (south) of the lake, there is Freshies which is not too far from Heavenly ski area. Freshies can do much of their menu gluten free, and they have very, very good fish tacos. You want to check their website to see if they will be open, because they close for vacation days sometimes in the early fall in the off season. Also, if you are driving around and need to grab some grocery items, there is a grocery chain called Raley's/Belaire which almost all of them have an organic/specialty foods/gluten free aisle (except the town near where I shop, which has 2, and the one next to a health food store took theirs out, a marketing decision I don't quite get unless they were TRYING to help the Natural food market or whatever gain more customers
). By comparisons, Safeway is sort of like a black hole for gluten free here in my town (boonies north of Sac), I think they have conceded much of that to the other chain.
Sacramento has a Whole Foods in Sac itself, and there is another one in Roseville. I have kvetched here about the Roseville one several times because they tend to scatter a lot of their gluten free stuff ALL over the store instead of concentrating it, but I have noticed that, like magic, the gluten free stuff seems to be migrating slowly towards its own aisle, which is next to 2 other aisles with a lot of it (the cereal and the boxed nut milks aisle). Maybe the help got tired of leading The Lost to the One Item.
I do not want to jinx myself but Whole Foods currently has a few gluten free flours I can use which has driven me back there and made me say nice things about them, because I can't do the Bob's Red Mill anymore. And then they had some liquid soaps I could use (we are talking sensitive skin here, I am pathetic) and then.... there was the gluten free makeup powder I was not allergic to. Then my local grocery stopped carrying the powdered laundry detergent I need, and that meant now I am going all the way to the WF again to buy that. People complain about food being expensive or hard to find, but if your skin is reacting to most detergents, you'll go anywhere to get what you need.
Sacramento also has a Gluten Free Specialty grocery in midtown. This is such a kick to have a whole store gluten free, it's worth it just to visit, but you'll end up buying something. They also get in freshly baked breads from other gluten free bakeries, like Mariposa's in Oakland. Sometimes you can buy frozen Mariposa's items in the freezer case of Whole Foods.
Pizza, there is also Seven Sisters Pizza, in Citrus Heights, and they are a gluten free restaurant, that sells their crusts to other stores. Their pizza is going to be more pizza - y that BJ's, but BJ's has the pizooki dessert thing and a regular menu if you have to do a mixed menu if someone thinks they must have gluten in your group.
