Japanese Steak House Blues

After over four years of living with Celiac Disease, I've found that eating out still isn't easy, and often it isn't very satisfying. Tonight I went to a Japanese steak house, Kabuto Japanese Steak House and Sushi Bar in Greensboro, NC. I used to enjoy going to Japanese restaurants, but this is the first time I've been to a Japanese steak house since being on the gluten-free diet, because everything cooked in front of you on the table gets a good dousing of soy sauce (which is brewed with wheat and is not gluten-free). I made all of the usual preparations before leaving the house; including calling ahead to ask if they could accommodate a gluten-free diet, coming up with a cursory plan of what to eat based on their menu, snacking heavily before going to avoid feeling starved while watching everyone else eat, and bringing my own wheat-free soy sauce. You would think that after all of this preparation, and carefully ordering sushi and steamed rice I would have a nice meal with no issues, but unfortunately that wasn't what happened.

The chef at out table was entertaining with his flashing knives, onion volcano and spinning a raw egg on his spatula for an impossibly long time, but it was frustrating for me to watch as heaps of delicious looking food was tossed (literally) on to everyone's plate. On my plate was a heap on steamed white rice. I used my soy sauce to flavor the rice, along with a dash of Chinese style hot sauce.

My sushi arrived when the main course was served. I ordered a tray of sashimi tuna wrapped in rice and seaweed, and I ate it with the wasabi sauce, pickled ginger and my soy sauce. The tuna was fresh, but the sushi wasn't rolled to well. Nonetheless, I was content with my simple meal, that is until about 45 minutes after leaving the restaurant. Some times I have stomach irritations that I can't precisely attribute to a gluten reaction, but this wasn't one of those times. I had acute sharp pains in my gut that lasted for about a half hour, pretty much the typical good dosing of gluten reaction for me. Once again I don't know exactly where the gluten came from, it had to be either the wasabi, pickled ginger, Chinese hot sauce, (all of which I've had before) or the raw tuna (unlikely due to my type of reaction) or was it some unknown and unseen culprit?

All in all my advice would be: if your on a gluten-free diet, pass on the Japanese Steak house experience. Dining out shouldn't be this hard!

Japanese Steak House Blues

Interesting Information...

I recently met a woman at my local grocery store who was stocking up on Gluten-free cereal. She shared some really interesting information with me. She said that her daughter was diagnosed with Celiac disease. After that she went ahead and had her whole family tested including all three of her kids, her husband, and herself. They all tested positive for Celiac! No one in her family had known anything about Gluten intolerance previously.

She went on to say that her sister works at the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center. They have some recent results from studies in Europe that indicate that as many as 30% of the population of some countries may be affected by Celiac Disease!!! Can you imagine that! Now, I don't know how accurate this information is, but just think of the implications of these numbers. Ten to fifteen years ago it was thought 1 in 10,000 people were affected, then about five years ago they determined that 1 in 133 people had Gluten intolerance, but to think of 30% of the population is mind-shattering, it makes me want to go out and open a gluten-free restaurant chain! These type of numbers would also vindicate my mother who thinks anyone who has an illness that lasts more than a few days should get tested for Celiac disease (love you mom!).

The other piece of information that the woman from the grocery store shared with me is that the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center will send out a free Gluten-free care package to anyone recently diagnosed, including food samples and information about how to start a gluten-free diet. Here is the link to apply.

Interesting Information...