Chilling Experience Reminds Me To By Hyper Vigilante!

[luvs2eat]

We went to an awesome restaurant for Valentine's Day where there are only 12 diners and the chef cooks right in front of us. I'd spoken to the chef long before our visit and he assured me he could easily do gluten-free. It was an amazing 5-course meal and we absolutely loved it. We decided to go back again last weekend and I again called and spoke to the chef. gluten-free is no problem, he repeated. I also told him that my husband (who is a picky eater on a good day) hates bell peppers in any way, shape, or form and he could also exclude that as well. He could, he told me.

 

His dinner style is to cook what he has access to... always fresh ingredients, mostly from the garden he keeps outside the tiny restaurant. So you make your reservation and eat whatever he cooks! We made our reservation on Thursday for Saturday evening.

 

The first course was a delicious sausage and goat cheese stuffed baby PEPPER. Of course the hubs wouldn't touch it and my neighbor got to eat his! Second course was a yummy smoked chorizio and crawfish and rice and veggie soup. Then we had pork tenderloin on top of some kind of unusual bean we'd never heard of with a spring salad on top of that (w/ day lily blossoms... interesting) and a cherry sauce... more yummy. Dessert was a lavender crème brulee with a dollop of strawberry freezer jam and marigold petals. It was wonderful. And the last teeny taste was an amazing buttermilk biscuit w/ sweet tomato jam.

 

He handed me my biscuit and I asked, "This looks wonderful!! Was it difficult to make your recipe gluten-free?" "Oh, he said, "That's not gluten-free... sorry."

 

So, not only did I not get all the courses of this wonderful and rather expensive dinner (nor did my hubs), but I had CHILLS thinking how close I was to putting it in my mouth. We had conversations about being gluten-free during the dinner! I had visions of having to say to our neighbors, "Um... we have to leave NOW," and surely not making it home before I exploded from both ends in their car!! I didn't ask about the other courses as they were served because he KNEW I was gluten-free and, thankfully, had no repercussions..

 

Needless to say, I doubt we'll go back again. I just don't trust the chef anymore. Would you go back?

[BlessedMommy]

Nope, I absolutely would not go back. Sorry that you came that close to being glutened, and with a full dose at that! 

[LauraTX]

I would have left after he handed me the biscuit.  

[WinterSong]

Sorry to hear about your experience. I wouldn't go back. I've been to plenty of restaurants where the server assures me as she hands me each dish that everything is gluten free. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of being served by careless people. 

 

....on second though, I would go back. Not to eat, but instead to calmly speak with the chef and describe what went wrong. Hopefully he would take it as a learning lesson so he can better serve his next customer with food sensitivities.