The first was a pub/restaurant local to me. As it happens this establishment was one of the first places who sent the then Head Chef, on one of our training courses. Then for nearly three years they handled gluten free brilliantly, despite the Head Chef having moved on. They had taken everything we had said on board and fully trained all the staff to be competent in gluten free, especially having a separate gluten free menu. Dishes that could easily be adapted by substituting the bread roll etc were available for me to eat.
So, on Wednesday evening, we decided to treat the kids and take them out for dinner to thank them for helping us reorganise our kitchen to a development kitchen rather than a manufacturing one. We arrived at the pub and got a drink at the bar and took the menus out with us to peruse while we enjoyed the last of the sunshine over looking the sea (this particular pub commands the best location in the area).
As we live on the coast you can imagine that there are a lot of fish dishes, but there were the normal steaks, gammon, slow roasted duck and belly of pork. They had a key to which dishes were gluten free, egg free etc, but they made the key so hard to understand. I don't know about anyone else, but I am so used to seeing gf for gluten free or g for containing gluten, but they did an alphabetic key where 'a=gluten'. It got really confusing!
Anyway, out of possibly fifty to sixty items on the menu, there were four that were gluten free, which did not include any of the sides....so no potatoes or gluten free bread or anything. Even the prawn cocktail (prawns and lettuce!!!) was not gluten free because of the bread served. No adapting here then!!! So we finished our drinks went elsewhere...another establishment has lost four covers on account of not being able to cater for one coeliac diner. At this moment in time, I will not be recommending them and will take the matter up with their head office.
The next rant is about Tesco. We have a cafe in Tesco, Barnstaple that has a Costa concession. It used to be owned by the Compass Group, which is huge, but it recently changed ownership. I know the manager quite well (I do like my Costa coffee) and they have always provided me with ham, chips and beans and I have never been ill. The chips are fried separately, the ham is not crumbed etc. So, I was on a course all morning and met hubby and kids in Tesco for lunch before we did the shopping.
We went upstairs to the cafe and grabbed our trays to queue up like the sheep we are and very quickly it was our turn to be served. I asked whether they had any ham to which the server said no. "Okay, what have you got that's gluten free?" She then proceeded to hand me a thick A4 file and told me to look. Grrrrrrrr! I refused and said that we would rather eat elsewhere than spend the next 30 minutes trawling through pages of allergen specifications only to find at the end of the search that they've sold out of the one item that I can safely eat.
Where in customer service training has it been said to these cafes and other eateries "For best customer service make sure you don't know what is in the products you have to sell. Instead give the customer a whacking great file to read through before they can even order. Make them look like complete idiots and make sure you draw attention to them, because that's why people eat out....to enjoy a challenge and to be made to feel different."
Anyway, as it happened the Manager was on duty, so I stopped and had a chat! He totally agreed, that it is really awful in terms of service, however it's dictated by Head Office. They are not allowed to verbally inform the customer at the serving hatch what is gluten free anymore (or any other allergen for that matter) - it's against their rules. They have decided that the best way forward is to thrust a huge folder into your hands and hope you move on quietly, so they can serve the lions' share of their customers. They are so scared of being sued that the onus is completely on us. So so frustrating and really poor I think.
I went home and made us all food instead. It's getting to the stage where I can't eat out without aggravation or illness - or most likely both! Brunch at Chez Droppa this morning was far less hassle and risk free! #BetterThanEatingOut The recipe for the pancake mix can be found here http://www.glutenfreetraining.co.uk/pages/recipes.html
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| Gluten free pancakes - with egg and bacon |
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| Gluten free pancakes with peaches, pecans and natural yoghurt |
So, has the legislation helped us - for me 'no' is the answer. I think it has made the situation so much worse, especially in cases such as this where the interpretation is way off the mark - common sense has gone out of the window completely. I used to eat in chains because generally they were safe, but I have to say I don't think that's true anymore. The kitchens are becoming ever more de-skilled (just ping and serve) with very little ability to provide anything that doesn't feed the masses and because of the way the food is bought in, it can't be adapted either. Furthermore, staff turnover is such that big chains think that to undertake the training once will suffice. Unfortunately, training is a continuous process (not just where allergens are concerned), but in all areas of the business. Our experience of late has illustrated that there are huge gaps in staff awareness and knowledge and it does not instill confidence.
