Horn of Africa restaurant in Portland

My husband and I happened upon this little gem last month.  I was looking for a new ethnic restaurant to try based on reviews from other gluten free people on Yelp.

The Horn Of Africa is in NE Portland right off of MLK Blvd.  It is actually in a little strip mall of businesses, so I wasn't sure what to expect when we walked in.  It had a cool, open interior and we were greeted by the owner, Mohamed.  He let us choose our seat and browse the menu.

A few minutes later, Mohamed came to our table and I explained that I was gluten free and stressed the importance of cross contamination.  It turns out Mohamed is also strictly gluten free, so he was very aware of my dietary restrictions.

After speaking with Mohamed, we let him choose what we ate.  We ordered a platter of 7 dishes served over a bed of  saffron basmati rice.  I love meals where I can try a lot of different dishes! There were vegetarian, chicken and lamb dishes.

It was a huge platter.  And I mean huge.  We ate straight off of the platter with a fork.  Each sampling items, then spinning the platter a bit to eat off of the other side.



My husband got a side of Ethiopian spongy bread.  He liked it a lot. He said it had a nice sourdough flavor.

We went on a weeknight and it wasn't very busy, but Mohamed did tell us that on weekends, or if you call ahead, they do have gluten free flat bread.  As Mohamed told us, "It is 110% gluten free!!"  He is really wonderful to talk to, he has a lot of personality, is very friendly and a great story teller.  We were also able to meet the chef, Mohamed's wife, Khadija, who was also very friendly.

I love supporting small businesses and it is a bonus that Mohamed buys as much local, organic ingredients as he can.  I felt the prices were very good for the quality of food we were served.  And, as always, I love when I eat somewhere new and not get sick.  We are definitely going back soon so I can try that GF flat bread!

You can call The Horn of Africa at 503-331-9844 on a weekday to request that the GF flatbread is available.  They are easy to find at

5237 NE M.L.King Blvd
Portland, OR 97211

Check out their website:
http://www.hornofafrica.net/

Andina Restaurant in Portland

My husband and I decided to try out Andina after hearing so many amazing reviews.  Andina is not a inexpensive restaurant, so we went for our anniversary dinner.

Andina is located in the trendy part of Portland called The Pearl District.  Andina opened in 2003 and serves gourmet Peruvian food.  The restaurant was founded by Peter Platt.  Peter's mother was from Peru and his father was an Oregonian.  The restaurant seem to be a perfect blend of Peruvian food with a NW flair.

We made reservations (a MUST) and went on a Friday night.  The place was pretty packed.  We were a few minutes early, so we took a seat in the bar to wait for our table.  I was excited that they had some unique cocktails.  I am going to start this review of the cocktails we tried throughout the evening.

First off I tried the SACSAYHUAMÁN.  It is a blend of habanero vodka and passion fruit puree.  It was very tasty.  Perfect blend of sweet and spicy.

Next, I ordered the RON-YKI-ÓN.  It is ginger rum with grapefruit and lime juices.  I did not care for this coacktail. I can not pinpoint exactly what I didn't like, but I didn't finish it.  That is not to say you wouldn't like it, just not a preferred drink for me.

 Lastly, I tried the MOJITO DE PIÑA.  It was pineapple rum, shaken with crushed pineapple, lime juice, fresh basil and cane sugar.  I loved this drink, however it was difficult to drink out of the straw.  I would love to see this as more of a blended drink.

 

My husband ordered a GOLPE DE ESTADO, which was a chocolate milkshake spiked with spiced rum.  As you can see by the photo, he quite enjoyed it.

Next, on to the appetizers.  My husband received a bread basket and he said the bread was very good.  The bread is NOT gluten free.

The bread came with a trio of dipping sauces to try.  They were not all GF, so I let my husband have at those.

For me, they suggested an appetizer of fried yucca.  It is served with a dipping sauce.  It was good, and I enjoyed the sauce, but I would love to see them offer a good GF bread, like New Cascadia. 

We love veggies, so we also ordered ESPÁRRAGOS PERUANOS, which is grilled asparagus brushed with chimichurri.  It was delicious.  The asparagus was a perfect tender-crisp.

We also ordered QUESOS ARTESANOS CON MEMBRILLO, whis was three artisan cheeses with quince jam and cancha.  The cheeses were all amazing and the cancha is a special type of toasted corn.  Instead of popping into popcorn, they puff up and you end up with....corn nuts. They blow away the packaged corn nuts that you can buy.  They were fresh and tasty.

For my entree, I decided to go with something very different from what I would normally order.  I ordered CARAPULCRA CON PUERCO.  It is Cascade Natural pork loin stuffed with Fontal cheese, pan-roasted to order atop wild boar-potato carapulcra,  seasoned with ají panca, peanuts and Moonstruck Fortunato No. 4 Peruvian chocolate, served with a red wine-poached pear.  The entree was $24.00.

It was a flavor explosion in my mouth.  So many different and strong flavors that somehow all went together.  My husband was suprised by my choice, and I was nervous, but I really enjoyed it.  We ate so many appetizers, I did end up taking half of it home.  Honestly I felt it tasted better the next day.  I feel like the flavors blended better.

My husband ordered SECO A LA NORTEÑA.  An old family recipe—lamb shank slow-cooked in the Northern Peruvian style, in a rich cilantro-black beer sauce, served with a classic guiso de frijoles, garlic rice and salsa criolla.  This entree was $25.00.  My husband liked this very much.  Less fancy names for this meal would be lamb shank with beans and rice.  My husband ate every bite, despite all of our appetizers.

I love me some dessert, so I ordered a trio of truffles to go. These truffles are $2.50 each, but they gave them to us as an anniversary gift, which I thought was a nice touch.  The flavors were:
CUSCO yellow hot pepper and spiced citrus peel
CAPULI dark chocolate ganache infused with anise
LORETO essence of passionfruit and apricots in milk chocolate

All of the truffles were delicious. The flavors were so unique and I really enjoyed them.

Overall, it was a great experience.  All of the food was so unique with great flavors.  I love trying new things.  When I booked our reservation, I let them know that it was our anniversary, so every staff member we encountered wished us a happy anniversary, which was a nice touch.  It was an extremely busy place on a Friday night.  I definitely recommend making reservations as much in advance as possible.

We will be returning to Andina in the future for special occasions.  It is a high end restaurant and would be a great place to take out of town friends if you want to impress them.  However the best part is, they are very knowledgeable regarding gluten free issues.  As sensitive as I am, I did not get sick at all.

You can view more information about Andina here.  They have an interesting history.  The website is well laid out with tons of information.  
http://www.andinarestaurant.com/

You can make your reservations via their website, the OpenTable app on your smart phone or by calling  503-228-9535

They are located at :
1314 NW Glisan St
Portland, OR 97209

Click here for directions

Mama Mia! That was delicious!

Mama Mia Trattoria in downtown Portland was a favorite of mine pre-celiac. I was so happy to find they have a gluten free menu! Be sure to tell your server you are GF.

http://mamamiatrattoria.com/?openmenu=gluten-free-menu

Service is always top notch at Mama Mia. Their happy hour is amazing. I didn't look at their GF happy hour items tonight though. If you want to check it out, I would call ahead to find out your options.

Tonight I started with the house salad. Organic baby greens, shaved red onions, candied pecans & ricotta salata cheese tossed with balsamic vinaigrette. It was delicious!

For dinner I ordered the cioppino, which is is whitefish & shellfish in a slightly spicy broth. If you like seafood, I highly recommend this dish.

The cioppino came with a side of pasta.  They Do have a GF pasta option, but I love veggies and opted for a size of spinach.  It was spinach sauteed in olive oil and lots of fresh garlic. 

I didn't get a photo, but my husband got the CHICKEN SCALLOPINE PICCATA, which is on the GF menu also. My husband said his was delicious. The chicken was tender, perfectly cooked & the sauce amazing.

Tonight we were way too full for dessert, but we have sampled some of their deserts in the past. The homemade sorbet is fantastic. Our favorite is the pear sorbet.

Mama Mia changes their menu quarterly, so if you go once, it is worth going back. They also recently started serving weekend breakfast. I have had the Caprise Frittata and it was very good.

I do recommend reservations. We went on a Tuesday night & they were busy. If you go for happy hour, the bar is small...get there early before the dinner rush. (503) 295-6464

GF German cuisine at The Berlin Inn

I was craving cheese fondue the other day, which made me think of a popular local German restaurant that I have always loved.  I won't name names, but we loved it so much that is where we had our rehearsal dinner when my husband and I got married a million years ago.  I went on Google & Yelp, searching for GF reviews on the restaurant. There were a lot of iffy & negative reviews regarding GF, so I used my handy iPhone app, Find Me GF. After searching & googling reviews, I found The Berlin Inn in SE Portland (OR)

When we got to the restaurant, I was surprised to see that it was in a house. I worked through my apprehension & we went inside. It was pretty small, but everyone was friendly. The menu was HUGE and everything looked amazing. All of the GF items were well marked, plus they had a page that was "Gluten free at a glance" that made it even easier to find my choices. Our waitress was also GF, so she was helpful. We finally settled on our orders. 

http://www.berlininn.com/Pdf%20Menus/complete.pdf

We started with a Gouda cheese fondue. They brought out a big platter of brown & white New Cascadia bread cubes & apple slices. The fondue was good. It had a little thicker texture than I am used to but the Gouda has a nice smokey flavor. The fondue is thick & GF bread isn't the sturdiest, so I used a spoon to scoop the cheese onto my bread.  The bread was good though & had a better texture than most GF bread I have tried.  The plate was also sprinkled with a beautiful purple flower.  I meant to ask what kind of flower it was. 

I love schnitzel but it's breaded and I assumed it would be off limits. The Berlin Inn offers a GF schnitzel option. Usually it is served with spatzel, a pasta, and they do have a GF option, but I wanted to try something different. I had the warm red cabbage salad and potato pancakes.

The schnitzel was very good. It had a more crunchy crust than I was used to, but it was very. very good. The sauce that came with it was awesome! The red cabbage was delicious also. My husband was impressed with the perfection of the crispy potato pancakes. They were good, but next time I will definitely ask for sour cream to go with them.

They had 4 GF dessert options that night. I was very full from dinner, but who am I to pass up a GF dessert? I took two to go :-) 

The fist was the Chocolate Raspberry Rembrandt. It was delicious. 

The second was the Cashew Cream Cake. Equally as delicious. Not too sweet, but tasty all the same.

 

 Overall we really enjoyed the experience.  I am eager to go back & try new dishes.  My husband loved his dinner also. Plus our waitress told us a little secret about a plan for the restaurant that I was VERY excited about. I will update this post when they announce it officially! Follow The Berlin Inn on FB!  It is a small restaurant, so I recommend reservations on a weekend or holiday.  503-236-6761

Going GF at PF Changs!

I've heard a lot about PF Changs being GF friendly, so I decided to check it out. I've always had great experiences at PF Changs, but this was my first time GF.

I don't know what it is about PF Changs' waitstaff, but we have always gotten great waitresses/waiters. They listen, make suggestions & all have let us see a bit of their personality. (Shout out to Victoria at the Roseville, CA location)

Here is PF Changs GF menu

At first I was a little disappointed because I ordered a martini with potato vodka. In their well stocked bar they didn't have any non-grain vodka. (There are potato, corn & grape vodka options) However the waitress apologized and the manager said he would put in an order for some.

 We started with their chicken lettuce wraps. I have tried different versions of this meal at other restaurants but none come close to PF Changs recipe!

 

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

 

My Mom, who is also GF, ordered the GF Philip's Better Lemon Chicken. I tasted it and it was lemony goodness.

I ordered the GF Ginger Chicken with Broccoli. It was beautifully presented with a ring of broccoli and the chicken in the middle. I highly suggest either meal.

 

A nice thing about PF Changs is that they bring out their GF meals on a different style plate than the regular meals. It made me feel a little safer knowing that the kitchen staff knew my meal needed to be gluten free. The waitress brought out our own GF soy sauce, which I was happy about.

It was a wonderful meal, great staff & I love a place that a celiac can feel safe.

Burgerville' GF friendly menu items

Burgerville is a delicious burger chain in Oregon & Washington. It's quite a bit spendier than, say, McDonalds, but the food is a million times better!

One day as I was out & about, I was craving a milkshake and Burgerville makes pretty delicious shakes. I decided to look up their nutritional information online. They had a section specifically addressing GF issues.

http://www.burgerville.com/wp-content/uploads/burgerville-gluten-free-menu-items-and-ingredients.pdf

The website also said that some locations have a GF bun. I decided to investigate further. I was happy that the girl I spoke with was fairly knowledgeable. I placed an order for the Pepper Bacon Burger gluten free. I asked and at my location, they have a separate fryer for just fries (no breaded items) However they did inform me that the fryers were right next to each other, so there could be cross contamination. I decided to go for it anyway. Be sure to ask at your location if they have desperate fryers.

I was given a container that was marked GF. Inside was the fixings for the burger and an individually wrapped Udi's GF bun. I love that it was sealed.

I built my burger and it was delicious!! I haven't had luck with GF buns, but this was big, fluffy & delicious. (I went back a couple of weeks later & the bun wasn't as fresh, but still not bad)

I also got the rosemary shoestring fries & they were tasty. I love that in the fall they have sweet potato fries!!

Their milkshakes are pretty amazing too. I love the Mocha Perk milkshake the best. Burgerville is known for having fresh local seasonal items on a regular basis. I would recommend checking it out!

Find a Burgerville near you;
http://www.burgerville.com/find-a-restaurant