Great gluten-free Indian Restaurant In San Fran

[Phyllis Morrow]

I recently ate at Dosa, an excellent Indian restaurant in San Francisco (995 Valencia @ 21st Street), and they took real pains to accomodate my gluten-free needs, with the help of my Triumph dining card. The manager asked me to send more information and now they offer even more gluten-free options. Here is my correspondence with her.

Hi Phyllis!

Thank you so much for your email. I wanted to let you know that about 72 hours after you left we made an important change at DOSA which was to make ALL of our dosas and uttapams (with the exception of only the onion rava and rava masala) WHEAT FREE.

We permanently removed the less than 1% of maida flour that we were using in our batters to have 100% wheat free dosas.

Also for you to note is that there *is* a miniscule amount asafoetida in our sambar, rasam, coconut and tomato chutnies which cannot be removed at this pt in time, but it represents less than 1% of the ingredients. We're quickly looking into using the asafoetida root itself as our Executive Chef did growing up which gets us around needing to have the starches that make asafoetida a powder. I will keep you posted.

When a person comes to dosa, they can feel free to order from the menu at large (we do not use wheat in our gravy) and we're updating our allergy menu to show asefoetida as well as other updates. A customer eating dosa simply needs to enjoy their dosa with either the eggplant, cabbage, or mysore (lentil) chutnies or with organic raita, and not with the sambar and traditional chutneys. There should be plenty of culinary satisfaction this way as we continue to formulate asatoefida wheat free recipes.

(Our kofta, by the way, the lamb dish does not include wheat in the making of the lamb balls.)

I will provide an updated allergy menu to you over the web so you can use this as an example of showing our 'cards' so to speak, in the most open manner possible as an Indian restaurant to ensure the safety and well being of our customers.

Having been raised as a vegetarian and surrounded by many restrictions tied to South Indian culture, we take everyone's concerns very seriously and make every change we can to stay current with dietary restrictions.

Let's keep in touch and I look forward to seeing you again at DOSA.

Warm Regards

Emily Mitra

I had written:

Emily,

I want to thank you for the care you took while I was there and your

interest in providing gluten-free options for patrons. My apologies for

taking a while to send you the information you asked me for when I ate at

Dosa a couple of weeks ago. Gluten is found in wheat, rye, barley and

often oats; their derivatives are also unsafe*. Specific to Indian

cuisine, the Triumph dining card that I had with me lists the following

ingredients as unsafe: suji(rava), maida, roti, sevian, hing (asafetida).

The following are listed as questionable (may contain gluten): kofta,

gravy, saag paneer(which may contain maida), make sure masalas do not

contain hing.

A note on the discussion board of celiac.com posted by someone from India

also commented that in many Indian restaurants curries are thickened with

flour as a shortcut (the better restaurants obviously don't do this, so he

advised going either to restaurants where a lot of Indians eat or those

that are higher-end).

Cross-comtamination can also be a real problem, so it's important that

cooks clean utensils and prep surfaces thoroughly.

Thanks again for a great meal,

Phyllis Morrow

*For more detail, here's some overall information on maintaining a

gluten-free diet that might be helpful (from an article on the celiac.com

website addressed to doctors):

...it is crucial for the patient to avoid all foods made with wheat, rye,

or barley. This includes types of wheat like durum, farina, graham flour,

and semolina. Also, bulgur, kamut, kasha, matzo meal, spelt and triticale.

Examples of products that commonly contain these include breads, breading,

batter, cereals, cooking and baking mixes, pasta, crackers, cookies,

cakes, pies and gravies, among others.

It is also good practice for patients to avoid oats, at least during

initial treatment stages, as the effects of oats on celiac patients are

not fully understood, and contamination with wheat in processing is

common. So, its a good practice when first adopting a gluten-free diet to

eliminate oats, at least until symptoms subside, and their reintroduction

into the diet can be fairly monitored and evaluated.

Another good practice is coaching celiac patients to avoid processed foods

that may contain hidden gluten. Wheat flour [and barley malt] are commonly

used in many processed foods that one might never suspect. A few examples

include candy bars, canned soup, canned meat, energy bars, ketchup, ice

cream, instant coffee, lunchmeat, mustard, pastas, processed meat,

sausages, and yogurt.

[peanut-uk]

I'm going to San Francisco in 2 weeks time and have added this to my list!

Thanks Phyllis