Allergic to shellfish?

I decided not to rely on the tardiness of our Tae Kwon-Do club's Instructor to organise the Christmas do this year as we ended up in a 'last minute' venue last year.  I therefore took it upon myself to sort out the event.  As it happens it's quite late to arrange Christmas Dos in October - who knew?!

The consensus of opinion was to go to a national restaurant chain with an Italian theme locally and then onto various watering holes.  They can fit 25 of us in at the beginning of December with a set menu.  Ideal.  I provisionally booked.  It wasn't until later that I thought about myself and what I could eat, so then looked up the menu on line.

I don't know why this particular chain thinks this is a good idea - I thought we were really making progress in providing relevant information - but in order to find out which menu items are suitable for coeliacs, I had to send an email (in the 21st century?) to a "Guest Relations" person, requesting the allergen information.  Now I'm sorry, but that is about 40 steps backwards from where we were two years' ago.  What if I wanted to eat then and there with a hungry child?  How ridiculous is that?

However, what makes me more mad......and sad really.....is the set menu choice, and I quote.......

"I can confirm the following dishes from our Christmas Set Menu which are gluten and wheat free are the King Prawn starter without Ciabatta Bread and the King Prawn Risotto."

Inspiring? Not very.  As it happens I am mildly allergic to shellfish.....I come up in an attractive red blotchy rash, but in small amounts I can eat them.  Even without this, I'm not sure I would fancy king prawns for a starter (without the bread - I eat carbs too you know!) and then king prawns for main.  This has to be the 'epic fail' Christmas Menu of the year.

To be fair to the company, I can eat off the Classic Menu, which means that I don't receive the Christmas Set Menu discount, but that's not really the point.  In what chef's kitchen, did they decide that the only set menu items that would be gluten free would be king prawn starter and a king prawn main? Even if one of the dishes were without prawns, that would be a little more adventurous.

The upshot of this is that it further convinces me the need for the KISS Campaign.  We need to inspire companies to cater for us.  It's not that hard to do and it makes eating out so much more pleasurable and less stressful.  Despite that I know I will have a good time out - but as usual, will probably eat before I go.......just in case......


This week's recipe is "Winter spiced fruit with a hot meringue topping".   For further information about our KISS Campaign, this recipe and others, please see www.glutenfreetraining.co.uk

Winter spiced fruit with a meringue topping