9 days of Gluten & Dairy free dining -updated-Biergarten

[GinnyBear's_mom]

Hi everyone,
We traveled to WDW for 9 days (9/25-10/3) and had such great experiences dealing with DD's gluten and dairy sensitivities. I will preface this by saying she does not have anaphylactic reactions, instead she gets hives and severe digestive distress. She also cannot eat yeast, oats, buckwheat, sunflower seeds, chocolate liquor and any processed/bottled/canned fruits or vegetables. We had hot and cold responses from Special Diets and I will explain the interaction we had with Special Diets, chefs and other restaurant staff for each location. We took tons of pictures and I will make a separate post for each restaurant we visited.

Here is the list of locations where we ate:
Smokehouse: dinner
Pizzafari: breakfast
Gardens kiosk: snack
Dino Diner: snack
Whispering Canyon Cafe: lunch
World Premier Food Court: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks- MILKSHAKE!
Sanaa: lunch & dessert
Babycakes: delivery menu
Grand Floridian bakery:custom cake
Grand Floridian bakery: cupcakes
Garden Grill: dinner
Cosmic Ray's: dinner
The Wave: lunch
ABC Commissary: lunch
Biergarten: lunch
F&W Festival: Terra Booth
Captain Cook's: breakfast
Aloha Isle: snack
Gasparilla Grill: breakfast, snack
1900 Park Fare: breakfast, dinner & Cinderella's slipper dessert
Crystal Palace: lunch

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

After navigating the parking lot disaster that is now DTD, we went to Smokehouse (the quick service location attached to House of Blues). The CMs working there had no problems letting us look at their ingredients binder and they even took our questions back to the chefs at House of Blues. We finally settled on a smoked turkey leg for DD but they were out of them. The CM let is know they would be ready in about 15 minutes. So we headed over to activate our APs and by the time we finished, the turkey legs were done.

The turkey leg came with chips (Lays, which I forgot to take a picture of). It was similar in size to the turkey legs you can get around the parks. DD and I split this and there was even enough left over for DH The turkey was tender and had a nice smokey flavor.

 

[madaboutMickey]

Our adult DD will be with us this trip. First time in many years. She has celiac and it looks like WDW has made major improvements since her last visit when she was first diagnosed.
We will also be going to 1900 Park Faire for dinner and will be interested in your experience.
The last trip the CS were the biggest issue. Very limited choices and not so tasty.

 

[micheleq]

Anxious to hear your review of ABC Commissary! DH & DFIL are gluten intolerant (DH is highly sensitive) and I am curious to hear about the GF menu at ABC.

 

[sleepingbean]

I am glad to hear that this one worked out! We got super sick after eating at house of blues in Disneyland, so I haven't been brave enough to try again. You gave me hope

After navigating the parking lot disaster that is now DTD, we went to Smokehouse (the quick service location attached to House of Blues). The CMs working there had no problems letting us look at their ingredients binder and they even took our questions back to the chefs at House of Blues. We finally settled on a smoked turkey leg for DD but they were out of them. The CM let is know they would be ready in about 15 minutes. So we headed over to activate our APs and by the time we finished, the turkey legs were done.

The turkey leg came with chips (Lays, which I forgot to take a picture of). It was similar in size to the turkey legs you can get around the parks. DD and I split this and there was even enough left over for DH The turkey was tender and had a nice smokey flavor.

 

[sleepingbean]

Anxious to hear your review of ABC Commissary! DH & DFIL are gluten intolerant (DH is highly sensitive) and I am curious to hear about the GF menu at ABC.

I'm looking forward to all the reviews, too! Here is what we found for GF DF at ABC Commissary
What we got: gluten free bun, burger, sides. Gluten free fries. Also, I ordered the rice from the curry and the grilled chicken from a sandwich and I had those put together in place of their chicken curry meal. Enjoylife foods choc chip cookies were the dessert for us.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

Our adult DD will be with us this trip. First time in many years. She has celiac and it looks like WDW has made major improvements since her last visit when she was first diagnosed.
We will also be going to 1900 Park Faire for dinner and will be interested in your experience.
The last trip the CS were the biggest issue. Very limited choices and not so tasty.

We have been to WDW 6 times in the last 8 years and they have made vast improvements in their GF & DF foods! I brought a ton of safe snacks from home but we brought a lot back home with us. We found enough gf/df snacks like popcorn, doughnuts and milkshakes all over.

I did not want DD eating burgers and chicken fingers this entire trip but there was enough variety at the CS and TS locations where that didn't happen.

We did a split stay at All Star Movies and Grand Floridian. We were really happy with the choices at both but there was much more variety at the CS at ASM compared to GF.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

For our first full day in Disney, we went to Animal Kingdom. I stopped by the Garden's kiosk during the morning EMH and asked to see the Pizzafari breakfast information in the ingredients binder. They no longer have the traditional binder, but instead the CM handed me an ipad. I selected the restaurant and the meal that I wanted and could easily zoom in on the ingredients labels for each item. I saw that the eggs, bacon and sausage were safe for DD but there wasn't a meal that just had those 3 items. DD loves potatoes, but the 'breakfast potatoes' at Pizzafari are a mini cheese and potato casserole so that would't work out for her.

I also purchased a Babycakes cinnamon sugar doughnut for DD while at the kiosk. Chocolate Babycakes doughnuts were available that day as well.

When we went to Pizzafari I spoke to the manager and ordered the bounty platter with the potatoes and French toast on one plate and the eggs & meat made for DD's specifications on another. DH and our oldest daughter ate the French toast and potatoes. I considered adding the fruit cup that was on the menu, but the kids each had a banana in the hotel before we left.

The food was prepared quickly. I was not given a pager at this location and instead waited at the food window with everyone else.

I took this picture after I made room for the doughnut I purchased at the Garden's Kiosk. (sorry everything is smushed to the side!) The eggs were decent as were the sausage and the standard limp Disney bacon.

And here's the yummy Babycakes doughnut from the Garden Kiosk-

I definitely plan on visiting Pizzafari again for breakfast! It is rare to find a CS location within one of the parks that serves a full breakfast that is gluten and dairy free.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

After our early breakfast at Pizzafari we met Daisy, went on Triceratop Spin and saw the Nemo musical. Our late lunch reservation wasn't for another 2 hours so we went to Dino Diner to grab a snack. I knew from previous experience that the cinnamon nuts Disney offers are gf and df (and they have not changed their vendor since I last had them) so I did not ask to see the binder. I ordered the cinnamon glazed pecans and a frozen Coke. In my opinion, Dino Diner is a hidden gem for gf/df snacks. In addition to the pecans and frozen Coke, they also have cinnamon glazed almonds, frozen lemonade, cotton candy and snow cones.

Cinnamon glazed pecans- whole pecans rolled in plenty of cinnamon and sugar!

Frozen Coke

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

While lunch at Whispering Canyon Cafe after a morning at AK might not seem logical, we had friends staying at Wilderness Lodge that we wanted to catch up with.

I had read on the blog Gluten & dairy free WDW that Sarah had been able to speak with one of the chef's at WCC in advance and ate safe cornbread and chocolate cake. Since cornbread is one of DD's favorite foods, I emailed Special Diets with this request about 6 weeks before our trip. Every 2 weeks I received an email from them letting me know they were working on the request. A week before our trip, I received an email from Chef Ernesto at WCC asking for my phone number so we could chat. He called me the next day and said the cornbread and chocolate cake would not be a problem He went over the ingredients in both of the items (they keep Namaste chocolate cake mix on hand and for the cornbread they use Namaste vanilla cake mix and cornmeal). He also mentioned there would be grilled chicken with vegetables for DD. Chef Ernesto was worried about the yeast (it is in stocks and broths) and suggested staying away from the baked beans and meats. He offered to make corn on the cob for her, but DD doesn't enjoy that so much. Before he ended the phonecall, he said that he would be on vacation during our actual visit to WCC but he would leave the info for the chef in charge of allergies.

When we checked in, the CM noted that there were allergies listed on the reservation. After we were seated, a chef arrived at the table. He knew nothing of a special note from Chef Ernesto He promised to take care of us and prepare the items that we were told would be there.

DD loved her dinner! The chicken was grilled perfectly as were the potatoes and grape tomatoes. All were seasoned with just salt and pepper and olive oil. The portion size was ridiculously large! I was worried that the cornbread would be too sweet since it had cake mix as the base but it wasn't. They gave DD Earth balance spread on the side.

The dessert was a warm chocolate cake with a semi-molten center. Berries and Tofutti were served on the side. Again, this was way too much for DD, so her older sister gladly helped her out

Even though there was a mix-up with the communication between the chefs, they prepared a fantastic meal for DD. This was our first visit to WCC and it won't be our last

 

[sleepingbean]

Yum yum yum! But how do you manage to contact the chefs to request that they use those Namaste mixes? I don't see how to do that in the current channels of communication? Would love that option for a birthday dinner

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

Yum yum yum! But how do you manage to contact the chefs to request that they use those Namaste mixes? I don't see how to do that in the current channels of communication? Would love that option for a birthday dinner

Request the allergy sheets from Special Diets by email and if you see that a location has the Namaste mix, contact Special Diets again and ask if that location can provide that specific product for your ADR. Here is the email I sent to Special Diets regarding the cornbread and cake:


Hello,

I have a few questions regarding lunch at Whispering Canyon for our trip this September. Is it possible for the chefs to make gluten, dairy & yeast free cornbread? Also, is the lunch skillet available as gluten, dairy & yeast free? I see on the gf/df special diet sheets from Disney that this restaurant has Namaste chocolate cake mix. Is it possible to request this chocolate cake dessert ahead of time for my gf/df/yeast free daughter?



I received the standard "give us 3-5 business days" email and also received this a few times in response:

Thank you for your email.

I apologize that we have not been able to provide this information to you as quickly as we had hoped. Please be assured that we are still working with the location to verify if they will be able to accommodate these requests. As soon as we have more information, we will happily forward that along to you.

We appreciate your understanding.



Then finally an email from the chef:

Can you please send me your telephone number to give you a call regarding your dinning reservation on 9/26/14 at Whispering Canyon Café.

We can do the gluten, dairy and yeast none add it cornbread. The ingredients are Namaste Vanilla cake Mix, Cornmeal, Canola oil, Water and Eggs.

For the skillet we can do the steam corn, and roasted potatoes.

We can make the Namaste chocolate cake gluten, dairy and yeast none add it.



Unfortunately, it doesn't always work as smoothly as this I did have a backup plan if I could not get an answer by email. Our friends were staying at WL and I was going to ask them to stop by the restaurant and speak with a manager and possibly a chef a few days before our ADR to get a definitive answer regarding the cornbread and the cake.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

About a week before our trip, Disney announced that a few locations would have new allergy friendly menus available. We were super excited that one of the locations was the World Premier Food Court since we were staying at All Star Movies for a few nights

The chefs and that managers at the World Premier Food Court were amazing. I asked them a zillion questions and they let me look at food labels and didn't treat me like a pest. Whenever we ordered we were given a pager that lit up and we picked up our food from a special window on the side (by the pressed penny machines).

Here is a picture of the test menu for allergies for lunch and dinner:

For breakfast, we chose the adult portion of Mickey waffles with sausage (bacon was also an option). Both of our daughters split this since it was the same size at 2 kids portions but cheaper. The waffles were crisp on the outside- they definitely know how to make allergy free Mickey waffles here!

For lunch, DD had lots to choose from and she settled on a hotdog with fries. Since she cannot have yeast, rolls are never an option but they did have gf buns here.

As a snack, we picked up some of Mickey's kettle korn We brought 3 bags home with us as well. You can get this in the gift shops at most resorts. The ingredients are: popcorn, granulated sugar, soybean oil, salt.

A few snacks from the grab and go area of the food court-
Fruit Cup with pineapple, apple and cantaloupe

Veggies with hummus- cucumber, grape tomatoes and carrots with Sabra hummus cup

When we stopped in for dinner, DD was in the mood for some turkey. She already had fries that day and we didn't want her to eat another helping so we got a ginormous serving of steamed vegetables instead (we all helped her eat those, I don't know too many 3 year olds who can eat that many veggies at once!) They put a gf roll on our plate, but it wasn't yeast free of course so we had to take it off.

After eating a healthy meal of roast turkey and a zillion veggies, both of our daughters split a gf/df milkshake. It was made with Rice Dream and Pacifica Rice Milk. This was DD's first milkshake she loved it of course!

DD had tons of options at the World Premier Food Court and we were a little sad to check out even though we were going up the road and checking into the Grand Floridian for 5 nights. That probably wouldn't make sense to most people, but we had such a great experience regarding DD's food issues we were worried about leaving the safety of our little food court.

Next up- lunch at Sanaa while we check out Kidani Village where we will be spending Christmas!

 

[bookgirl]

I get it.

On my March trip the best allergy service I got was at the All Star Sports food court. It was very easy to get accommodations and the chef's were quick and efficient.

I need to write up my recent trip's food experiences but I will say that it was a good trip for Allergy service at both CS and TS restaurants.

I am staying at Movies in Jan and I hope they have these menus. I don't do a ton of eating at the resort but if I do it's so nice to just be able to grab a menu and order without having to wait for the chef.

(I'm lucky that I only have skin reactions and can tolerate trace amounts so as long as I know I'm missing the main allergens I'm happy to just order from a menu).

 

[sleepingbean]

Glad to know about All Stars! We haven't stayed there, but maybe we will sometime
Thanks for the follow up on the allergy sheets and ... a shake! Yum!

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

I get it.

On my March trip the best allergy service I got was at the All Star Sports food court. It was very easy to get accommodations and the chef's were quick and efficient.

I need to write up my recent trip's food experiences but I will say that it was a good trip for Allergy service at both CS and TS restaurants.

I am staying at Movies in Jan and I hope they have these menus. I don't do a ton of eating at the resort but if I do it's so nice to just be able to grab a menu and order without having to wait for the chef.

(I'm lucky that I only have skin reactions and can tolerate trace amounts so as long as I know I'm missing the main allergens I'm happy to just order from a menu).

The one complaint I have about the new allergy menus at ASMo is that they only had one copy! They had one for breakfast and one for lunch/dinner combined. It was hard laminated and you had to ask for it but the CMs wouldn't give it to me, they had to get the manager and the manager would give it to me.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

After checking out of All Star Movies we headed over to Sanaa for lunch. I had emailed Special Diets about a month earlier and asked a few questions about their menu. I looked at their menu to see if DD would be interested in anything. She is a meat and potatoes kind of girl, so I asked if they could make their "meaty loaf", coconut cream mashed potatoes and tapioca pudding safe. They responded within a few days and said that they could safely prepare all of the items I asked about.

We arrived at Sanaa right when it opened and got a table by the windows. When the chef arrived, he knew exactly what items I had requested from Special Diets, which was fantastic, not only because it helped expedite the process but they had changed their menu and the meaty loaf was no longer on the kids menu! In addition to the coconut cream mashed potatoes he asked if DD wanted another side item. DD requested the roasted potatoes which included both white and sweet potatoes. This was going to be quite a starchy meal!

The meaty loaf tasted like regular meat loaf. It tasted pretty good. The coconut cream mashed potatoes did not taste like coconut at all but they were enjoyable. The roasted potatoes had salt, pepper and oil. DD was in hog heaven with all of the potatoes.

The chef came back after we were finished with our entrees and asked if DD was ready for the chai spiced tapioca dessert. Of course she was!

I'm normally not a fan of tapioca, but the chai taste made it really yummy. Plus it was filled with blackberries and strawberries and a sweet berry sauce.

DD had a yummy and potato filled time at Sanaa. I liked that they had a dessert already on the menu that could easily be adapted for allergies and that their children's menu had more than the standard kid's fare. Not only did we have a wonderful meal, but you can't beat the view of the savanna!

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

I briefly considered getting an order from Babycakes delivered to during our trip. I knew DD would love their cornbread, doughnuts and cinnamon sugar toasties (she is allergic to an item in their chocolate products) but I didn't like that I had to order large quantities of each item; you have to order items by the dozen or half dozen. Any item on the menu that can be made into a loaf (such as the cornbread and cinnamon sugar toasties) can also be made in individual size muffins but you have to order them by the dozen. They also charge a delivery fee- they deliver all around the Orlando area.

Since we were able to get safe cornbread at WCC and Babycakes doughnuts at AKL, I decided against ordering from Babycakes.

Here is the menu they emailed me in September:

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

In case you haven't seen it already, there is a wonderful thread on the restaurants board called Official Disney Cake Chatter. Lurkeyloo does an amazing job of organizing all of the information about specialty cakes & cupcakes ordered through Disney bakeries. There is a link on the first page about ordering an allergy friendly cake- it is gluten, dairy & egg free. The cake is vegan as well. While there are some amazing cake and frosting flavors on the cake chatter thread, the allergy cake can only be ordered with vanilla or chocolate cake and vanilla or chocolate frosting. Not a fantastic variety, but the fact that a cake is even made on property that my child can have is seriously amazing to me The ingredients for the cake and frosting are listed in the link on the thread's front page.

My husband was celebrating his actual birthday while we were in Disney and I thought it would be nice to get him a cake. We have quite a few gf/df bakeries where I live but their prices are either extremely ridiculous or there is an ingredient that DD can't have in the cake (usually chocolate liquor). I was excited at the prospect of having a birthday cake for DH in WDW that a) we could all have and b) I didn't have to make!

Since we would be spending the second half of our vacation at the Grand Floridian, I decided to start with their bakery first. As luck would have it, their bakery also seems to be able to handle requests (both special diets related and otherwise) that other resort bakeries cannot. I called the number listed on the thread and left a message for Pat who is the gatekeeper of the Grand Floridian bakery. We played phone tag for a few days and eventually, Pat called me back at a time that I was able to answer the phone. She was a little hesitant at first when I spoke to her about the gf/df cake. She referred me to Babycakes but I let her know that would not be an option due to DD's allergies. She told me that there was a possibility of cross-contamination with their allergy friendly cake. I assured her that DD did not have anaphylactic reactions to her allergens. I am aware that everytime we take DD to a restaurant (even Disney owned) that there is the possibility for trace cross-contamination and DD has never had a problem with that.

I ordered the cake- a 6 inch chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Then, I decided to get a little fancy and order a 3 inch chocolate molded Mickey for the top of the cake (again, thanks to lurkeyloo I knew this was a possible option). I asked for the ingredients in their dark chocolate but Pat was unsure. She then called the vendor to find out and called me back within the hour. The ingredients for their dark chocolate are: unsweetened chocolate, sugar, cocoa fat, soy lecithin (emulsifier), natural vanilla. And the disclaimer: the choclate is manufactured on shared equipment with peanuts, tree nuts, peanut/canola oil, eggs, milk and wheat ingredients.


I asked for the cake to be delivered to the Gasparilla Grill on DH's birthday at 4:00. If we were not staying at the resort, we would have to have it delivered to one of the TS restaurants there. We were very extremely happy with the cake. The cake was moist and there was plenty of frosting. The chocolate Mickey was solid and had a wonderful slightly bitter dark chocolate taste- very rich! The writing was down with a thickened strawberry puree. I plan on ordering another one for our Christmas trip and probably every trip thereafter! The cake was $23, Mickey was an additional $5.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

A few days after I ordered the cake, I wondered if Grand Floridian bakery could make cupcakes for DD. I called Pat back and was able to order 2 cupcakes (vanilla with vanilla frosting) to be picked up at the Gasparilla Grill on various days during our stay. When I picked each of them up, they were kept at the register with my name on them and I was charged $4 for each. According to DD, they were very yummy!