Allentown/hellertown/lehigh Valley Pa

[earthtoneNJ]

Took a quick weekend trip to the Bethlehem Pennsylvania area. I didn't find many gluten-free places looking online, but found a few on Urban Spoon. We chose Relish and Sagra and liked both.

Relish is in Allentown PA. It's an upscale lunch counter type place, very sunny and pleasant. We both had salads with chicken, great fresh ingredients and perfectly cooked, juicy grilled chicken. I had the Thai and loved it - sweet, but not too sweet. The highlight was the sweet potato fries! They confirmed the fries are cooked in dedicated oil & gluten-free. YAY! Haven't had sweet potato fries in a year and a half, and these were really good - crispy and tasty. They seemed pretty knowledgeable about the ingredients.

Sagra is in Hellertown (very short drive from Bethlehem). They only serve dinner, somewhat to our surprise when we tried to get in at 1:30. The food was delicious and the cocktails I loved - the cucumber martini was top-notch, and the grapefruit was good as well. Nice-looking wine list. The BBQ duck was really good and Gluten-free Casein-free by default (I think). I didn't ask aabout other gluten-free options since the duck was what I wanted, but it seemed like a place that would happily accommodate special requests (the chef came out to talk with the guests and seemed very eager to please).

Since we're used to Manhattan prices both places seemed like bargains, but I'm not sure if locals would feel the same.