Would you have eaten the pudding?

[NoSourDough]

I have celiac disease and just a few crumbs of gluten will cause at lease 3 weeks of damage and illness for me, so eating out means I have to be very careful.

I’m on holiday in a UK destination, gone to a hotel restaurant, made it clear I have celiac disease, asked for the gluten free menu.

Main course, all is well.

Pudding time, I ask for a gluten free Sticky Toffee Pudding. DH asks for a normal one but with vegan ice cream (he is lactose intolerant).

A different waitress brings both puddings out, both in the same coloured bowls and is temporarily perplexed with regard to which one has the vegan ice cream.

i make it clear that one should be gluten free. She disappears and comes back and gives me the one that she says is gluten free.

We start eating, DH tastes his and says his ice creams tastes normal and not vegan.

i have a mouthful of pudding and spit it out - fearing that I’ve actually got the gluten pudding.

I decide not to eat mine as I cannot take the risk.

When waitress returns, I explain my dilemma, that I cannot take the risk and I want the pudding taken off the bill.

I couldn’t believe her reaction. She spoke to her manager, and said “it was 100% gluten free” with such an attitude and as I went to answer, she walked off.

They did take off the pudding on the bill but it was the fact they didn’t take it seriously and that it felt I was making a fuss about nothing. Why they didn’t put the food in separate coloured bowls or flag it is beyond me.

i did want to speak to the manager but it was mayhem outside in reception and I just wanted to leave. I will be leaving a review online.

Asda, Tesco, other supermarkets plus pubs we've been to locally.

Just out of interest did it say on the menu the dessert was gf or could be made gf. Only wondered because the last time I ate out I chose stp and was asked if I was aware it was gf. The restaurant only offered the gf version. This was a small independent restaurant and I think they found it easier to have a totally gf dessert rather than one served 2 ways

Presumably the chef could tell the subtle differences between the puddings as they will look different to someone who serves them every day or maybe they do something not obvious (like usually you get a lemon in sugary coke and lime in a Diet Coke) that they could tell. I really doubt that they would just not know and brazenly tell someone with an allergy that it was the GF pudding!

It was on the gluten free menu

The thing is, they looked exactly the same. You could not tell the difference by looking.

I wonder if they could guarantee 100% if the customer was dealing with a nut allergy? I think that they wouldn’t have risked it.

I get why you didn’t eat it, definitely not worth the risk. For the record, I also absolutely get how awful a coeliac reaction is. But I think you were being risky ordering 2 puddings that looked identical given you both have different dietary restrictions. Did your husband eat his ice cream? Did you ask for his to be removed from the bill?

Come on it’s really not that hard. You don’t need to feel sorry for the restaurant. They have to legally be able to identify allergens.

Yes I get it was on the gf menu. But was the one on the main menu also gf? The restaurant I was in seems to have gone down the route of offering a couple of gf desserts but not a non gf version if that makes sense. Presumably because someone who doesn't need gf can still eat gf so it saves them making 2 versions of it. So both puddings would have been gf unless ice cream isn't gf?

Why do you feel sorry for the restaurant? It’s standard to have all different colours of flags to show allergens. It’s literally a cocktail stick with a paper top. It’s not unusual for someone with an allergy to have a few flags in a single dish.

Oh sorry - I see what you mean. Yes, two different versions. A gluten free option and a normal gluten option. Hence the possible mix up.

They didn't mess it up. You queried, they double checked and confirmed, but you still refused to eat the gluten free dessert you ordered and that was given to you. You should have paid for it.

There were many allergy precautions they could’ve taken but didn’t so YANBU at all

Its the act of bringing out two dishes, one no gluten, the other no milk in identical bowls with no way of telling them apart that is deserving of a bad review. Unless there is some foolproof way of telling the difference, which the waitress could have explained, then its very poor catering practice.

They did mess up. There were so many precautions they could have taken and they didn’t. It was their responsibility to clearly distinguish the two puddings, not mine.

I don’t feel sorry for the restaurant, bad wording on my part. But my guess is that the husband ate his because OP says they asked to take hers off the bill rather than both. So I want to know if he had a bad reaction to the ice cream? If not, there’s no reason to think the pudding contained gluten?

I wouldn't have eaten the pudding, no. The uncertainty would be too much of a risk for me.

The restaurant needs to have more stringent procedures in place - as others have said, it's easy to mark food with flags. If you said you were GF for an allergy, the manager should have taken your order personally and delivered it to you personally, as an extra reassurance that allergy protocol had been offered. In many chain restaurants this is now standard practice.

I think the problem with GF options is that a lot of people are GF out of choice rather than actual medical necessity - and too many people have no real awareness of celiac disease and the consequences of ingesting even the tiniest amount for sufferers. It's the same with lactose free options - many restaurants seem to assume you're choosing it because because you're vegan rather than lactose intolerant or have a dairy allergy, and so there's a laissez faire attitude towards these options rather than the same sense of seriousness about safety that they would have if it were a more commonly understood allergy like nuts.

I wouldn't write a bad review, as you weren't charged and you have no proof you weren't given the correct dessert - but I would complain to the General Manager in writing, making it clear you don't want anything in terms of compensation, you just want them to be more aware of how serious allergies are and that they need to be more careful about ensuring diners definitely get the right dish. I would also copy in the local authority food safety department.

Surely in that case it would be sensible to make clear that ALL the sticky toffee pudding on the menu is gluten free? My local posh cafe in a posh garden centre has various gluten free and vegan options on the menu. They are marked as "V" or "G" on the menu and there is no non vegan or non gluten free option. It means that there is no uncertainty.

YANBU. One of my friends has coeliac disease and I’ve seen her ill for a fortnight eating something that shouldn’t ever have gluten in it anyway. (Think rice pudding or yoghurt and fruit).

The fact she wasn’t sure, at any point, is the issue. If you are going to cater to coeliacs you should have a whole separate area where you are preparing the food, and then use different coloured bowls or flags (as the op mentions), to avoid any confusion with the catering/serving staff anywhere in the process from making the food to serving it. So that’s what they could have done better; they can improve the process so that coeliacs can have confidence in the food served. The waitress also shouldn’t have been shirty about it.

Well the chef should 100% have been able to tell the "subtle difference", because the puddings should have been cooked and prepared at differently! To avoid cross-contamination. You don't pop a normal pudding in the microwave with a gluten free one. You don't put them on the same surface. You make sure it is easy to tell them apart.

Allergies and allergens are very serious, and any decent kitchen will have procedures to make sure the waiting staff know which pudding is which.

Agree with all of this!

Surely the gluten free one was half the size, that's normally the way it works with gluten free stuff 😂

Yes I agree, it would make sense and would avoid this very scenario.

How depressingly true🙄

I imagine that ALL the sticky toffee pudding was gluten free. There is no point making one with wheat flour and one with gluten free flour. That was probably why your server was confused. Cant comment on the ice cream though.