Travel: Sydney

Mar 11, 2010 by glutenshmooten

Here’s another entry in my Travel series, this time from a guest reviewer, Jade, one of my closest friends and the inspiration behind this website! If you’d like to sumbit a guest review email info@glutenshmooten.com.au

Nulla Nulla

75 Cronulla St, Cronulla

We wanted to stop somewhere nice for breakfast and stumbled across this cafe in Cronulla. We asked the waitress if they catered for Gluten free and they said the could adapt the “Vegetarian Breakfast” for me – so the only things you miss out on are the toast and unfortunately the hashbrown isn’t GF either. I found the staff to be very friendly and accommodating.

Bondi Pizza

180-186 Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach

Now I have had a lot of Gluten free pizzas in my time – but this could quite possibly be the freshest and tastiest I have ever had! Sitting right across the road from famous Bondi Beach “Bondi Pizza” is a gluten free pizza haven. For a extra charge (I believe it was around $3.50) they can adapt just about any of their pizzas on a gluten free base. I decided to go simple and ordered the Margarita – and it was delicious! My friends ordered the Nacho Mexicana (not GF) but they CAN do that on a GF base – so I’ve been told that was delicious! Maybe a little pricey – but worth it. Click here to see their website.

Buzy Bakehouse

123 Queen St, Woolhara, click here to see their website (although you might not want to after reading below!)

Buzy Bakehouse can be found in the beautiful suburb of Woolhara. We stumbled across this very “buzy” bakehouse whilst walking down Queen St. I was so excited to read the sign out the front that had a massive “Gluten free” plastered across it! On my first visit I had the biscuits pictured – there were over 15 to chose from and I must say they were all delicious! (the question of course… was were they REALLY gluten free?… read on)

The next day whilst my friends had brunch in a nearby cafe, I thought it was time to try some of their savoury items. I ordered a GF sausage roll and GF croissant. I was told by the wait staff that the sausage roll was frozen and would have to be heated up – I said I didn’t mind as us coeliacs are used to our frozen food and not fresh! He then went to get my croissant from somewhere else – something made me feel uneasy and I said for second time “Are you SURE that it is Gluten free?” He looked at me like I was a fool and said of course it is. The cost came to around $6 – which I thought to be a  bargain as usually it would be $6 alone for ONE GF product. I went back to my friends happy with my purchases and scoffed my sausage roll which was admittedly lacking in flavour, Ive had much better. I opened up my croissant and pulled off a large section and ate it. Something seemed odd – it LOOKED like a Gluten croissant and TASTED like a gluten croissant, but I had asked TWICE so I must have been paranoid. I decided not to eat the rest at that stage, but wander back across the road to “buzy bakery” to buy a couple more croissants for the family. I went to order from a different man and was told that they were ONLY frozen not fresh! How can that be when the last one I just purchased was NOT frozen. At this stage I began to panic as I have not purposely eaten gluten in over 11 years. Management spoke to me and apologised and said all her staff should know. I expressed my anger and frustration and she “joked” that I would be “well in 5 days” and offered my money back. I said that was not the point. If you are going to sell gluten free products it is SO important that staff understand the severity of such a stupid mistake – especially when that patron asks TWICE. I would not recommend this place unless you want to play russian roulette with your coeliac.

[mappress]

I’m sure there are lots more gluten free options in Sydney so as a starting point check out Gluten Free Aussie Girl, Miss Gluten Free and Enjoy