Struggling With Dining Out In South-East Asia

[Inksng]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the forum. Recently went gluten -free. Also recently moved to South-east Asia, and I am really struggling when eating out. Although I do a lot of home cooking, lunch is difficult in particular because colleagues ask me to join them. I am able to avoid the obvious stuff like pizza and sandwiches, and the high end restaurants do seem to have some awareness, but I am struggling in the local hawker stalls partly due to language barriers and partly due to a general lack of understanding about celiac and gluten sensitivity. Much of the food here contains soy sauce so most things are off limits in the stalls. Other stalls obviouosly cross contaminate, using the same kitchen tools to pick up breaded chicken versus unbreaded. Many of the veggie options and Japanese foods are deep fried. Mane of the Chinese sauces are a mystery to me and when I ask the stall chefs, they themselves are unsure of its contents. You porbably begin to see my problem. I am mostly stuck eating a bowl of rice and even that I am uncertain about since vinegar is often used to cook the rice and I am not at all sure what kind of vinegar is used.

Does anyone have experience traveling through this region or living here? What can I consider safe to eat? I am just going through a suspected glutening and it is not pleasant and would like to avoid it in the future.

Thanks so much.