Baking Maniac Party

What a great evening... R&A from Baking Maniac, thanks for the yummy dessert! It was great meeting Jason from Geoexpat group in person as well. Finally an update to the photo preview of the dessert party as I've been so busy at work since Chinese New Year.

Look at all the dessert in the photos! It has been one of the best all-you-can-eat dessert party for me in a LOOOONG while since I've had all these allergies! R&A are very serious about their baking and careful in avoiding all our allergies - as you can see in the beautifully designed menu and the grand dessert stand!


I even got to pack my favourites home to satisfy my sweet tooth for the next few days. Those in this box are our favourites:



Chocolate Mendiants - The chocolate so smooth and overloaded with nuts and my fav dried cranberries. Loved them:

These cupcakes are amazing! They are the signature of the Baking Maniac ;) The level of moist is perfect to my liking. They used the best chocolate in the cupcakes, and the orange flavour is real, not from some flavoured oil. mmmmmmmmm yum! They also had banana muffins but I'm not crazy about banana (though I LOVE chocolate and had 2 of the chocolate muffins).

Cranberry Hazelnut Biscotti, with a hint of Cardamom. Biscotti is something I always loved. The texture of these biscotti is perfect and I loved the Cranberr/Hazelnut mix.

Yuuuum. I'm not a brownie person but I couldn't put these down. Thanks C:

The crisps to the right also has the interesting herbs flavour. Loved the texture of crisp + bit of chewiness. Cookies are decent too, would be great if it has more chocolate chips LOL, as a chocolate person. Chewy gluten-free cookies isn't easy to make... They also had Saffron Cardamom Pistachio Cookie.

Another heavenly dessert from C. You definitely couldn't tell that they are gluten free. We all agreed that the almond powder makes the difference:

Another look of my favourite:

Special thanks to Baking Maniac for the invitation =) See their website for some more professional photos and the "behind the scene" story ;)

If you have any sort of allergies (dairy, nut, gluten, you name it) and need cupcakes or any cakes for any parties, they can definitely help. R&A are amazing people who'd take care of all your special requests =)

Their contact info: http://bakingmaniac.blogspot.hk/p/contact-us.html
Bakers@bakingmaniac.me

Hanoi with allergy

It has been a while. It has been so long that Hanoi seems like a dream now... I did find some allergy-friendly restaurants in Hanoi:

Bobby Chinn

77 Xuan Dieu Street, Tay Ho District, Hanoi

In case you don't know, Bobby Chinn is a celebrity chef with his own show on TV. We were lucky to meet him in person at the restaurant that evening. When I emailed to make my reservation, I told them about my allergy including the "gluten-free" part and they completely understood. The waitress even told me they substituted the flour in the turkey gravy with rice flour. The Christmas dinner costed ~70USD including champagne. It was well worth the money... let's forget the Vietnam price level for a while. It is a bit out of the way but Bobby Chinn was saying that they are looking to move back to the old town area.

Cozy ambiance perfect for a champagne.

My cold white bean soup

"squid pasta"... flour-free pasta made with squid

Heavenly mushroom risotto - always my fav dish

buckwheat pancake with smoke salmon and cavier (with gluten)

my gluten free alternative: cheakpea pancake bruschetta

dessert!

Green Tangerine

48 Hang Be Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi

Vietnamese style French cuisine. Yummy and creative dishes. The Ca qua fish in tamarind sauce is really good. As well as the dish in the phone below... Email them in advance for arrangement for allergy. (I didn't specifically ask for GF food, but instead just picked dishes that look ok.)

Spice Garde Sofitel Metropole

MSG-free restaurant. I didn't request gluten-free but I'm sure they can arrange something if you talk to them in advance.

Exotissimo - Mai Chau tour home stay

We were at Ms Chang's ecological home stay. I told my guide about my allergy when booking the trip and on the tour. I ate most but not all of the dishes. I didn't get any reaction from the trip... It was this fantastic tour made me fall in love with Vietnam.

Street foods I didn't try

Pho - 49 Bat Dan. Long line up til late at night. I took a bite of the rice noodles, yummy!

Eel noodles - 87 Hang Dieu Street (the stir fried one is the best according to my friends. But I didnt touch the food cuz I saw huge packages of MSG on the shelf)

Ok, I took a few bites of this rice rolls. Yummy! Even in HK/ China, you can't easily find freshly made and steamed rice rolls like this! 14 Hang Ga Street

Vietnamese bun. Obviously gluten filled. I didn't touch...

Special thanks to the Canadian Chinese family we met on the Halong Bay trip for this street food cheat sheet (original source: gastronomyblog). I didn't try everything on the list. But for those my friends tried, they are all good.

Good luck with your Hanoi trip!

Eat right (gluten free restaurant HK)

Just called Martin at Eat Right SOHO in Central. Woohoo! They can serve gluten free food. =) It is a regular restaurant/wine bar that serves healthy food. The brunch menu looks yum too.

Heading over there now.

Eat Right
23 Staunton Street, SOHO, Central
中環蘇豪士丹頓街23號

Gluten-free travellers wanted!

I barely have time to blog about my previous trips and snack reviews, and now I'm planning the next vacation to Hanoi, Vietnam! =D


Since I've found out about my wheat allergy, I've already blogged about my trips to Japan, Switzerland, Germany... and will be blogging about my trip to Hanoi Vietnam and ZhongShan (中山) China. I need to find other gluten-free traveller bloggers for more travel tips! LOL.

I'll be travelling to ZhongShan, China for work later this year. I informed the hotel (Shangri-la) that I am on a gluten-free diet. I hope they'd understand but I will pack extra instant food and snacks for the trip.


As to Hanoi, I've read many travellers suggesting most foods are ok. But I haven't read any specific recommendations of restaurants or shops yet, esp for local flavours (I love Pho!!). I'm a bit concerned about the potential use of MSG and chicken powder, unknowingly by the cooks. And the fact that I'm also allergic to beef doesn't make life easier... Any tips?

Gluten-free dining in Germany (Munich, Augsburg, etc.)

Munich - fresh fruit
Fresh fruits are always the best gluten-free snacks. These 1EUR a pint strawberries are some of the sweetest I've had since I last berry-picked in Ottawa 10+yrs ago. I got them from Munich... I should have taken a pic of the stall cuz I tried berries from other fruit stands and they are not half as good!

Augsburg - hotel breakfast

We stayed in Augsburg the first few nights when we travelled to other -burgs during the days. We also got ham and cheese with hot chocolate and fruit as we did in Switzerland but the feel is different... Cheese & milk just don't taste the same in this Germany town than fresh in the Swiss mountain!

Augsburg - Mark's

After many days of sausages and cheese, I decided to have something light and order fish for dinner. I'm not sure if the balsamic vinegar dressing is gluten free (seems so according to the University of Chicago site but I've heard the opposite.).... but you can order to have the sauce on the side.

MARK`S Gasthaus im Weissen Hasen

Location: Annastraße 486150 Augsburg, Germany0821 518508

Augustiner, Munich. The infamous beer house. A very plain dinner we got after being overfed potatoes and pork knuckle/sausages.... Roast chicken and roast pork. These should be naturally gluten-free.

Bayerischer Donisl:

Got its name from the Celiac handbook. However the server was quite clueless about gluten-free. So I got myself a feast and hoped it'll be alright... At least he advised me against those potato dumplings which he said should contain wheat flour.

Address: Weinstrasse 1, D-80333 München

Pork knuckle the Gluten free way:
To ensure gluten free, you can order plain brined pork knuckle with plain potatoes, wherever you go in Germany.

Nuremberg:

I had plain sausages with sauerkraut. Sauerkraut, or sour cabbage, is supposed to be gluten-free. Sausages... not sure what additive/preservative they used...

I only had a temporary "gluten freee allergy". I'm not a celiac and I could tolerate a bit of gluten even back then. This article is solely a report of my own travel experience... I know how hard it is to find GF info on the internet in English. So I'm posting this even though I cannot confirm 100% the gluten status. It took me a long time to find the "celiac handbook" link above, so my trial of that restaurant listed in the handbook is hopefully useful to other GF travellers - that, the restaurant, despite being listed in the celiac handbook link, is sadly clueless about what is "gluten free".

Gluten-free snacks heaven... Germany!

Germany is truly a gluten-free snack heaven! They sell Italian brand Schär, one of my favourite gluten-free snack brand, everywhere!

Look for "Reformhaus", or other "Bio-markt", "Bioladen", "Naturkostladen", etc. and you won't be disappointed.

Super thanks to sf my travel buddy for pointing out all the bio shops wherever we go, and shopped with me! I'm snacking on my findings from Germany at the very moment =)


The Reformhaus in/near Viktualienmarkt in Munich has the widest collection I've ever seen!

Thx sf for spotting Denn's biomarkt in [Bamberg??].

Detailed reviews will be posted later =)

Gluten-free Switzerland - Interlaken & general

Zurich airport
While waiting for sf in the Zurich airport, I strolled around the supermarket Migros. With the help of the store manager, I found this Farmer Crunch Corn Flakes bar that is gluten free. I'm not a corn flakes fan but this is quite a good breakfast bar. It is intended for everyone, just they processed the corn flakes in a manufacturing line with no cross-contamination from wheat.

I was planning to search further for gluten free snacks in Switzerland but didn't find much. Though, most of the times I had fruits like apples as snacks and I also had my supplies from home. So it wasn't a big deal.


Grindelwald, Hotel Derby
When picking hotels in Europe, I always pick the ones closest to the train station to avoid tugging our suitcases a long way. We stayed at Hotel Derby in Grindelwald which is literally right on the platform of the Grindelwald station.

Breakfast: They don't serve gluten free bread but I had cheese, ham, yogurt, apples, and hot chocolate for breakfast.

Dinner: Since they claimed that they have the best fondue in town (well the town is small and not many others served fondue) and we were too tired to shop around for food, we decided to eat at the restaurant.

We told the waitress that I'm on a gluten free diet and he recommended dishes accordingly. I dount that they checked with the chef for the exact ingredients..... but I didnt get allergy reaction in Grindelwald.

The cheese fondue for sf is amazing but the cheese sauce contains wine and other ingredients, and the key food in a cheese fondue is bread, so I had to skip that - but I tried a bit of the cheese fondue with potatoes, it was really yummy. Some of the best fondue I've had! I had a rosti myself. This is not the best rosti... cuz it was soaking in grease. But the potatoes, egg, cheese and bacon very fresh and delicious...

It is still a restaurant worth visiting given the location, fresh ingredients, and yummy fondue (for your non gluten free friends).

Location: Hotel Derby, right next to the Grindelwald train station.


Interlaken
Given the not-so-satisfying rosti experience in Grindelwald, I ordered rosti again at Interlaken's Chez Pierre. The restaurant is about 5 min walk from the Ost train station. sf had dried beef which sadly I've also given up. I had rosti with sausages. When I checked with the waitress, she went right to the kitchen to check with Chef Pierre and confirmed the rosti can be made gluten-free. Again, I can't guarantee that they verified the ingredient list of the sausages.... I didnt get much allergy reaction in Swiss =) [I'm not sure what is my tolerance level but my face would be covered with rashes after a MSG-flavoured meal] It was a tasty rosti. I highly recommended this place.

Location: in Hotel Carlton Europe, Hoheweg 94, 3800 Interlaken. 5 min from Ost Train Station


I miss Switzerland where the trains are always on time and well-connected, food is sweet, breeze is sweet, weather is perfect!