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.

Exactly, I wouldn't want to risk it either.
If she wasn't initially sure which plate the non dairy ice cream was on, she can't have been sure which pudding was gluten free. Seeing as the pudding which was gluten free had the dairy ice cream.
Can see how it would have been confusing in the moment for the server though, next time get a cheesecake or something 😁 (obviously a gluten free one, just anything that doesn't look identical to your husband's dessert is my point 😁)

My son has a nut allergy and we have family members that can’t eat gluten. Also some vegetarians in the mix.so we have to be careful when we eat out.

if there is even the slightest hint of uncertainty re nut inclusion or contamination , I wouldn’t accept a dish for my son. The adults with gluten allergy would do the same for themselves .

Once when son was really little we ordered him a meal and double double checked there would be no nuts (a dish that could easily have cashews etc but we were told could be made nut free) we were told the meal would be made separately with absolutely no nut inclusion, then when it came to the table I asked for clarification that this was the nut free one as it was put in front of my son. the server hummed and aaah’d …. Checked with the chef when I asked them to and it was actually a regular dish with the nuts..the nut free one was sent to another table by accident .

So I’m extra extra careful and have no problem being obsessive and annoying in seeking clarity now.

a good example of restaurants taking allergies seriously is Wagamamas. Went there recently and they told us that as we had nut allergy at our table, the manager would take our order , oversee the meal being cooked and serve it to us…no weak links from order to table, to avoid any risk of contamination. This was so reassuring!

its crazy how this isn’t taken more seriously by restaurants, given the risks !

so in short, I wouldnt have accepted the pudding. You have to be certain and that didn’t seem like a certain situation at all.

This is really cool that she can tell if food isn't gluten free when eating it. I have heard of a few coeliacs being able to do that but it's really rare. I was hoping I'd develop the ability after a few years of being coeliac but sadly not. Of course, I can tell - just around 2 hours later!

I think rather than leave a really negative review - as the waitress might know the cost of the mix up will come out her pay which might explain her unhappiness + you didn't pay for it - I would just request that in future they clearly mark in some way the 'free from' food so that customers can be absolutely sure they are getting the right thing.

It doesn't need to be a negative review, it just needs to be factual to let people with allergies know to proceed with caution.

Awareness of allergies and cross contamination is included in food hygiene ratings, so highlighting a lapse is process is fair. The restaurant can also respond to the review to advise that they've taken the feedback onboard, or to let people know that both desserts were GF (if that is the case) and that they'll make sure waiting staff are aware of how to communicate or whatever.

I'm coeliac. On holiday in Stockholm, I was given a bread roll. I'd emphasised to the waitress that I m coeliac and on a strict gf diet. It looked like a normal bread roll. After the third query, the waitress was really off with me. I thought perhaps gf bread in Sweden is better than gf bread in the UK or Spain, so I nibbled a tiny bit. How ABSOLUTELY STUPID I WAS! The rest of my holiday was spent in bed or on the loo. Needed help to travel back to the UK. Was severely dehydrated due to diarrhoea and was really ill for weeks. I'm so flipping careful when eating anywhere now and my spidey sensors are hypervigillant.

Sorry but this is just boarding on stupid.

If they can't guarantee, without fail (because failing can and does lead to death), that the options they give are accurate, then they just shouldn't offer it.

They could just say no, we don't do GF pudding. No, we don't offer vegan ice-cream.

Now that would of course make them a bit of a shit establishment, so if they're going to offer a GF pudding, it seems pretty obvious to not also offer the same dessert with gluten. They can say our GF options are sticky toffee and pavlova. Our other options that contain gluten are cheesecake and apple crumble. VERY SIMPLE.

THEN, they should do what any decent establishment would do and implement clear practices on how to handle and serve food with dietary requirements, and ensure every single member of staff is trained well on those practices.

There is zero chance I'd have eaten that dessert after the waitress was clueless about it to begin with.

this absolutely.

I’ve had the experience of sending food back which was not vegetarian as ordered, to have what was obviously the same plate of food returned to me with the visible meat pieces picked out, so I wouldn’t have trusted the kitchen either.

YANBU.

But that’s an entirely different situation! There is no evidence that this was not gluten free. If OP ate it and got sick then obviously that’s awful that the restaurant allowed that but she didn’t. She didn’t want to risk eating a pudding she ordered and then didn’t want to pay for it either

Because there was no obvious difference between the GF and non GF, they were served unmarked in identical bowls and the waitress did not seem to be confident about which was which. I would not trust a restaurant with such poor catering management with my health either and would not have wanted to pay for their incompetence.

No obvious difference to the OP but could’ve had the garnish on the left rather than the right of the cake or they’re slightly different colours and the chef can tell or the sauce is placed under rather than on top of the cake or who knows what.

Im not saying they did do any of those things just that it’s a stretch to suggest incompetence on their part when we actually don’t know they were wrong about the dessert being GF!

If they were able to tell which one was the GF dessert then they should have communicated this clearly to the OP. This is as much an issue around communication as it is around safe food handling. If someone with coeliac disease or allergies is going to eat in your restaurant then you don't just need to provide the right food you also need to be able to demonstrate that you know what you're doing, that you understand cross contamination and do all you can to minimise the risk of mistakes.

in that case why did the waitress need to check and why did she not come back and say "I KNOW this is the GF one because.".... I'd be a bit dubious about trusting garnish on the right/left because what if you put the plate down rotated? IMO its too important for it to be so subtle that only the chef can tell.

I know how coeliacs disease works thanks
Of course having a mouthful of gluten would trigger a reaction.

If I swallowed the mouthful, agree. I’m not sure I’d react if I spat it out quickly (and swilled my mouth out!) I’m Coeliac too.

The situation is the same in that she was expected to accept the kitchen’s assurance that the dish was gluten free, despite her own doubts and evidence of a mistake having already been made.

The OP can’t even use a shared oven with gluten containing foods in it.

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But that’s the case whenever you order out with a condition like coeliacs!

My ex-H and ex-MIL are both coeliacs (or silly yaks as he used to say.) I got so used to checking labels to make sure things were gluten free, so that when DS was diagnosed with a cow's milk protein allergy last year, I just sort of shrugged and started checking things for milk instead. I was with my ex-H for nearly 12 years, so good training! Meanwhile I've developed allergies to certain things, and although they're not serious reactions, I'd still rather avoid them. (Honeydew melon, pears and cucumber so far. I got pollen fruit syndrome for the first time while I was pregnant last year.)

But yes, I understand how serious it is. I used to work in a café and took allergies seriously then as well.

To be fair where I work we have the same bowls for all desserts and our gluten free options is sticky toffee pudding. I'm pretty sure if we were to single out people with intolerances or allergies and put their food on completely different coloured plates/bowls people could find this embarrassing and complain.

I live in northern Ireland it seems most sticky toffee pudding is gluten free. Every time I eat out it's always the gluten free option as well.

There are plenty of discreet ways to differentiate so the serving staff can be sure.

so why put a non GF sticky toffee pudding option on the menu?