Tag Archives: plymouth

Gluten free breakfast at Bistro One

31 Aug

So I’ve tracked down the elusive gluten free pasty at Plymouth Green Grocer, now the next challenge was to find the mythical gluten free fry-up.  In the days before coeliac I would meet my dad and head out for a boys catch-up over a fried breakfast about once a month.  This is something we’ve really missed since my coeliac diagnosis.  Dad has been good enough to cook a gluten free one on a few occasions, but it makes it a lot of work.  My house is mainly vegetarian so I try to cook meat as little as possible.  Recently I heard that Bistro One in Ebrington Street offered a “full-on scoff breakfast”, with a gluten free options, so we headed out to try it.

It was great to see a menu littered with GF symbols and the words gluten free.  Stephen Barrett is a great host and made us very welcome and it was great to talk to him about his gluten free options.  As well as breakfast there is a lunch and evening meal menu using great local produce, with lots of gluten free choice.  Most dishes are naturally gluten free, and where possible Stephen uses polenta instead of wheat flour to ensure there is as much gluten free choice as possible.  There are always at least two gluten free desserts offered too which is great to know.

The breakfast itself was delicious, the only thing that wasn’t gluten free was the grilled hogs pudding.  I received extra bacon as a substitute which was fine by me.  The sausages were delicious and I can see why they are said to be award winning.  Dad and I both thoroughly enjoyed both the food and the surroundings and will definitely be back again soon.

There is currently a Bistro One Groupon deal that you can buy for the next couple of days: http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/plymouth/bistro-one/9906308.  I’ve taken advantage of this so will be going back to try an evening meal soon, which I’m very much looking forward to.  Note there is construction work taking place in Ebrington Street at the moment, but Bistro One is open as normal.

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Plymouth Greengrocer

23 Aug

Well after the big London adventure, it’s time to get Gluten Free by the Sea back on Topic: Helping the gluten free folk of Plymouth find great gluten free food.  Sometimes you need to look really hard to find gluten free food, and sometimes you find it where you least expect it.  This was the case recently when I stumbled upon a Tweet from Plymouth Greengrocer, which mentioned the words “gluten free pasty”.  This soon had my attention!  Being a Plymouth boy, the humble pasty was the thing I had missed most since my coeliac diagnosis, so I was eager to pay a visit.

Plymouth Greengrocer can be found situated in a marquee in the Chaplins car park, Plympton.  The business is run by Julie and Mark, who have a great passion for both gluten free food and supporting local businesses.  Mark himself suffers from Dermatitis herpetiformis, a skin condition linked to coeliac disease, so must follow a strict gluten free diet.

There is a freezer full of gluten free products from Baked to Taste of Honiton, Clive’s Pies of Buckfastleigh and also Floris foods from London.  I have been really impressed with the Baked to Taste products.  I have tried pasties, Devon steak pies, chicken and ham pies, chicken balti pies and sausage rolls.  All have been excellent, and the pastry and quality of the meat particularly impressive.  If you prefer a vegetarian choice there are cheese and onion pasties as well as quiches from Baked to Taste, and the pies from Clive’s are packed full of flavour.  There is also pastry available if you prefer to make your own snacks at home.  Floris provide some Italian treats such as tiramisu, lasagne, pizza and pizza bases.  The tiramisu was very impressive.

Also on offer were a range of gluten free cakes from both Clive’s and Mrs Crimbles, gluten free crisps from Devon company Burts, some nice looking sauces from a company called Leon’s and pasta from Orgran.  The majority of these products were things that I had not seen in supermarkets before.  Also offered are items which are naturally gluten free including of course fresh fruit and vegetables.  A range of other local products such as the increasingly popular Janner Jam are also stocked.

Excitingly, Julie and Mark are also launching their own brand of home made gluten free products from their new Plymouth Kitchen.  Scones and carrot cake were available this week, and scotch eggs will be available this weekend.  I wish them every success with this new venture.  Free delivery is also offered in Plymouth, and look out for new websites for both Plymouth Greengrocer and Plymouth Kitchen launching soon.  If you are based in Plymouth I highly recommend you pay a visit.

UPDATE 01/09/12: I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of gluten free scotch eggs to try yesterday.  I tried a curried one and a regular one and both were delicious, and I’ll be buying again in future.  I also picked up a Clive’s Lemon Lush cake which was very good too, though they are quite expensive for the size – though I think we are all used to this when it comes to gluten free cake.  Also news that from next week Plymouth Greengrocer will be stocking Pom Bear crisps, which have quite the cult following amongst the coeliac Twitter community!

UPDATE: 02/06/13: PLEASE NOTE THAT PLYMOUTH GREENGROCER HAVE NOW MOVED OUT OF CHAPLINS. THEY ARE CURRENTLY SELLING ONLINE AT WWW.PLYMOUTHGREENGROCER.CO.UK WITH PLYMOUTH ONLY DELIVERY. THEY WILL ALSO BE ATTENDING MORE MARKETS. FULL UPDATE TO FOLLOW ASAP

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Plymouth comes to Give Me Gluten Free mobile app

15 Aug

Sam over at Give Me Gluten Free has been busy extending the reach of her mobile phone app.  Available for both iPhone and Android, the app gives various gluten free information including a restaurant finder, cafe information,  help videos and even where to find a gluten free friendly cinema.  There is also a section on gluten in tea, which as you may know has been a topical subject for me recently!

Till now, the restaurant finder has been focused on London, but the good news is that Sam has now started adding Plymouth restaurants to the database.  The application is very slick and the restaurant finder automatically shows you the restaurants closest to your current location in the database.

I have discovered a couple of other mobile phone apps along my coeliac journey, both of which have similar restaurant finders.  Firstly Live Gluten Free have their own app, which I have added several Plymouth restaurants to.  The app also features products, recipes and gluten free places to stay.  This app is thought to have the largest UK database of gluten free friendly places to eat.

Finally, the longest standing of the three apps is from The Coeliac Map.  This app is the oldest of the three, but does not have much information for Plymouth so far.  I need to get that sorted!

In my opinion all three apps are great resources for those of us with coeliac disease and I have all three installed.  Each of them are available for both Android and iPhone and if you carry them with you then you give yourself a great chance of finding somewhere gluten free friendly to eat when you are out and about.  These kinds of applications really depend on us adding as many locations as we can to make them successful.  I will be doing what I can to get Plymouth “on the map” of all three, and I hope lots of you will get your favourites added too.

Do you know of any other good mobile apps, please comment below if you do!

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