to expect a hotel that says it copes with requests for gluten free food.......

I find it very worrying to eat out now that it is essential that everything I eat or use in any way is GF.
My best experience was in the café attached to a swimming pool in a town in Argyll. I live in a major city and have never had such a good response. As I see it people don't get the cross contamination issues.
SPF

When I worked in the cafe in M&S we had an enormous file that contained full details of all the ingredients of everything we sold. It was a bit of a pain if we had to hold up a busy queue to leaf through the folder for someone but it did mean we could give a definite Yes or No to any questions.

My husband has a gluten allergy, and despite being really good about what he ate was so poorly one week that we went back over everything. Apparently the black coffee he'd been getting from the vending machine where he works has gluten in it. Found this out by a post on a gf forum warning people to beware. Gave up coffee at work. Problem solved

Thanks for the TGIF tip, another place I hadn't thought of.

Yes, using flour as a thickener nowadays is very old school, isn't it. I found with a local Chinese takeaway that occasionally they use cornflour, and as they buy it from a cash and carry and the cheapest they can find, it isn't always ok for me to eat their food as sometimes it has a little wheat mixed in with certain brands. They hadn't even realised it until I asked, now they always buy the same GF brand always so that they too can advertise certain dishes as GF.

As Anya says - Trip Advisor. Definitely.

Chains are really good IMO Jane. We went to TGI Friday with DGC a while ago and the menu was very varied and the staff knowledgeable. I have been in one restaurant where I was told that one dish wouldn't be suitable because it contained cream.

I do get fed up of the ubiquitous GF brownie on menus.

The thing that annoyed me about our hotel, after their assurance, was that they used flour even when it wasn't necessary!

I agree, it's really hard to keep the bread fresh. Also pasta is fine to eat, but if you try reheating it later in something it all breaks up!

I have just been away for five days and on four nights we ate out at chain restaurants, because we were staying right by the Brighton Marina, where there is a huge boardwalk full of them. One night we ate at Prezzo - what they did was swap all the pasta dishes for GF , the tube shape only available, no meatballs or spag bol available. Various other sauces also not available, I was left with a choice of five mainly veg sauces that I could eat, and ice cream or pannacotta or sorbet dessert. The pasta was dreadfully undercooked, GF pasta takes a bit longer and whoever did it obviously hadn't tried it or tasted it before.

The following night was Zizzi. They had a proper GF menu and had obviously tried to make sauces without flour, I had a risotto and a sundae, both lovely and they were very helpful. Much more choice there, not too bad.

Then came Pizza Express - I could only have a small pizza made with GF flour, with a limited range of sauces on top. The pizza base was like cardboard, very thin cardboard, I had to get DBH to cut it up small for me, I wasn't strong enough! They did however do a very good gluten-free brownie - which actually seems to be the norm everywhere we go nowadays, many cake shops and tea rooms only do GF brownies. I had that with ice cream.

Last night we went to Café Rouge, I could have eaten half their menu and it was all delicious, we all decided to use our own local branch more often. I had a ceviche of salmon to start, confit de canard with cherry sauce, pommes dauphinoise and green beans, followed by a chocolate fondant topped with a raspberry and lime and red pepper ice cream coated in more chocolate in ganache form. It felt wonderful to be 'normal' and not only that, to be able to taste what the males were eating, too.

Am now going to live on courgette soup for two weeks.

My late DH used to like my gf muffins which I made using Glutafin flour. Like all gf baking I found that straight from the oven they were soft, but next day they were dry and stale. I tried freezing them which was OK, but fresh from the oven was best.

No ideas westie but I'd love the recipe for scones as mine are not what might be called light.

I've been trying out various recipes for a g/f friend with varying degrees of success. Scones were really good as was shortbread, summer pudding less so, the g/f bread I used didn't work out, any ideas?

Not all, Tricia, McCain do some delicious gf chips but they are expensive.

I expect you know, Kitty, that a most (if not all) frozen chips are made from re-constituted mashed up potatoes, sometimes with flour added, then re-shaped.
I'm surprised how many people seem to be allergic to gluten, it must be awful not to be able to eat bread.

To add insult to injury, today we stopped at a pub for a drink and decided we fancied a plate of chips (well we are on holiday!!) As I've been caught out by chips before , I checked that they were gf and was told that they were even cooked separately! And then, the chef came out and asked me to taste a gf shortcake he had made - it was delicious!

It's totally unacceptable in this day and age Kitty I'd write a review for TripAdvisor and highlight this, if only to warn others who might be in the same boat.
Even our very little, very local cafe has a range of gluten free cakes.

It is not too bad here in Belguim, I have a severe Shellfish allergy and have only once here had any problems after eating in a Thai resturant many years ago.

Mussels are the national dish which I avoid of course, but I have never had cross-contamination problems when I have explained to the waiting staff.

When my DiL was pregnant and we were out for a meal, she asked if the cheese was made from unpasteurised milk.

She was met with totally blank looks from the waiting staff (who are usually students with no training and very likely no children).

Finally one of them worked out what she was asking and relayed the question to the kitchen. She came back with the answer "We don't know, we've thrown away the packing."

This, however, in Germany, where even a year ago, no one had heard of vegan, no one could pronounce gluten, and a warning about lactose intolerance would have meant nothing to any kitchen staff.

A friend of mine just had a bad Gluten attack whilst on holiday.
I do not really understand why gluten is used in a 'jus' aka gravy. It should be a reduction, and if needs thickened arrowroot is an easy alternative.
I would also complain to trading standards if gluten free is offered than thats what it should be.
Last year DD and I did a lunchtime Wedding buffet for 100 there was, Gluten, Dairy, nut, and banana? intolerences, plus vegans and Vegetarians.
I had a great time planning the menu and we both enjoyed preparing everything.
I have tried to post one of the photos of the six tables.

To say that about the jus just shows that they are not really making their Jus properly - just as cream sauce should made with no flour of any sort so should Jus ! I agree about making a complaint. I was in a normal pub type chain of restaurants one lunchtime with a friend who is lacto intolerant - she told the waitress and was asked to go and speak to the chef, he explained to her what he was able to do on the spur of the moment and she agreed with him what she would like - great service.

With me it's a/ soya milk......even some of the big hotel chains don't provide it and b/veg option. It's getting better, but often there's only a single veg dish so no choice at all. I have ended up eating the carvery sans meat!

That's disappointing, especially as you checked before you booked. I'm gluten sensitive, so need to do my homework for our trip to Mallorca next year.

Recently, we went to a well known pizza chain for a meal and, much the same as you, they just left out the gluten food! The Caesar salad usually comes with dough sticks, so I went without. The irony being that they do gf pizza bases, so they could have just used that some of that dough instead of 'normal' dough (of course, I didn't think of suggesting that at the time!!)

My brother has to have a gf diet and he finds his choices very restricted when he goes out for a meal. I agree any decent chef could put a couple of gf choices on the menu, especially as this disease appears to be diagnosed more frequently these days.

I would report them to trading standards for false advertising. They obviously don't provide gluten free meals if they simply remove the gluten containing items. Any decent chef could rustle up a gf jus or shortbread esp if they knew you were coming.