gluten free familyA mum's blog about gluten-free living in Australia

We love dining out with our cosmopolitan toddler in tow, and a rich selection of Chinese, Mexican, Indian and Japanese restaurants on the doorstep means we can happily sidestep the local cafes and pubs where there is precious little other than chicken nuggets, fish and chips or spaghetti Bolognaise lurking on the kids menu.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently wrote a piece on some restaurants working hard to overcome this lack of imagination on behalf of our children’s dietary desires, but many of these are located in large urban centres where variety is driven by a tough competitive market.

Of course its when we are travelling that our options narrow considerably, leaving us desperately scanning fast-food menus Australia-wide that are devoid of anything warm and tasty that is not accompanied by a  payload of gluten.

So let us raise a toast to our last safe haven: chips.  Hot, fried and delicious to the entire human species, we can easily top up our toddler on them when all other menu possibilities have been exhausted when seated in the only cafe in a one-horse town.

Therefore it is with great dismay that I report the latest fad for beer-battered chips. We can tolerate such coatings on fish, prawns and other sea-dwelling creatures – but potatoes? Come on guys. Give us a break please.

In the last month we have encountered beer-battered fries in all manner of restaurants, pubs and cafes and a quick google search revealed someone begging for a recipe for this gourmet’s delight on a popular magazine website – so I can only deduce that a layer of batter adds a whole new dimension (along with several hundred extra calories and a few extra dollars on the bill) to everyday chips.

But it also leaves us gluten-intolerant people high and dry, and doomed to cower miserably at home where we can dine in safety when we would much prefer be out and about, clambering over rocks in small seaside townships or driving through quant mountain villages.

So please restaurant owners, take pity on the wheat intolerant and stop battering everything on your menu!

LH

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