Coeliac On The Map: Cardiff

As I am writing this blog whilst situated in Cardiff, I thought it was about time I did some exploring to find what the city has to offer for us Coeliac's.
Obviously a lot of my posts where I have been out and about shopping or eating have been situated in Cardiff, but a lot of the places I talk about can be found in many other cities too.
For example, as Cardiff is a capital city there is obviously all the big name restaurants flying around who have gluten-free menus, and some I have already managed to write about/review (and am waiting until some money miraculously appears in my bank before I can go out and review any more).
SO now what I want to do is dig deeper into the heart of the city and see if there are any unexpected or 'exclusive to Cardiff' places offering gluten-free goodies, which could be especially helpful if any of you reading are also living in this glorious city!
And Voila!
Thanks to a family visit and a very wonderful recommendation from my big sister, I have my first post ready and waiting because we ended up going to a little place called 'The Plan'.
The Plan can be found in one of Cardiff's beautiful Arcades called 'Morgan Arcade' and looks like this:

(image curtosy of gourmetgorro.blogspot.com)

It is a quaint little cafe and I highly recommend a visit for anybody new to Cardiff because it is situated perfectly; nicely tucked away so that you can escape the city buzz and get some awesome views of the arcade whilst you're at it, like this one that we had:

It also boasts some awesome home-made Welsh coffee:

I can't do the setting of the place justice by words alone and also didn't really get chance/felt a bit odd going round taking a hundred photos of the place so please just promise me you'll visit there!
Anyway, on to the gluten free food.
For a small place, The Plan has a pretty big menu! And more importantly a lot of gluten free options! Take a look:

 It may be hard to tell from this small photo (apologies for my awful phone camera quality too) but there are a lot of 'no wheat' symbols dotted around!
Also interesting to see on the menu was this little note:

Like I have mentioned before, it is always reassuring to see eating establishments acknowledge cross-contamination. Seeing as it is outlined on their menu, I thought I would call over a member of staff before ordering and quietly mention that I have an intolerance to gluten rather than my gluten-avoidance being a choice. We spoke about the note on the menu and I asked what could be done about cross-contamination, especially as I was hoping to order a gluten-free toastie and therefore had reservations about whether the same toaster would be used for my bread as the normal bread. The man I spoke to was very informative and reassuring and even made the effort to inform the kitchen staff of my issue. He later returned to me to say that effort would be made to reduce cross-contamination as much as possible for my order. That was good enough for me so I went ahead and ordered a gluten-free bean and cheese toastie!

It was a lovely dish, garnished with a side salad and even a few crisps! (which I obviously checked were gluten free also). I can't for the life of me remember what gluten free bread they used (duh) but whatever it was I DO remember it being really good! 

So 10/10 for The Plan! Not only is it a gorgeous little place but they are gluten-free friendly and full of helpful staff. What more could a Coeliac want?!

Amy

Review Of The New: B Free

It seems to be happening more and more these days, I'll go into a supermarket and find a load of new things in the free from section. It's amazing! Keep it up please!
As great as it is, its also a terrible temptress into me spending money I don't have, so for now I have had to pull the reins in and haven't been able to buy much of the things I am seeing *sad face*.
One thing I saw however and sent a picture straight to my sister with a caption something along the lines of 'OHMYGODWEHAVETOTRYTHISNOW' was this:

This is this new Mexican fajita kit by 'B Free'.
Luckily/unsurprisingly my sister shared the same excited thoughts as me, so she bought a pack and invited me over to try it out, yum!
On the pack you can see what this includes:

I took some pictures of our fajita making experience to share with you:
First of all we were super impressed that the wraps included in the kit were the full sized B Free wraps.

These are also sold separately on their own and I highly recommend them. You can get a pack of 6 of these for either £3.50 in Tesco or £2.80 in Asda - you make that decision yourself... anyway, I love them. They are soft and more importantly really flexible so they don't break when you wrap them; I use them for lunches all the time! So, back to the fajita kit, we were half expecting the wraps inside the kit to be small so its was definitely a pleasant surprise to get full sized ones!
The kit also comes with its own seasoning and salsa packets. They come in a double pack which you can separate which is really handy because it means you can use some now and save some for another time (because lets be honest, there is going to be another time!)
We used one seasoning packet but opted for another, larger salsa packet that my sister already had in her cupboard, purely based on preference and the amount of people it had to feed!

The only other change we made to what the kit suggests is we used minced meat instead of chicken as our filling. I took some step-by-step pictures whilst I was 'manning the pan' :

                                                             Step 1: Browning the mince

Step 2: Adding chopped peppers and onions

Step 3: (I tried to get an action shot of me adding

the fajita seasoning, but I am no professional

photographer so this will have to do):

On the side lines we started arranging other exciting, tasty things to go into our fajitas. Here is our selection of condiments and fillings:

And here is everything laid out on the table when it was ready:

Now for the fun to begin!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Ok so if you've read any of my previous posts you already know I LOVE Mexican food so my opinion is biased when I say I really enjoyed this meal! However from a none Mexican-obsessed point of view, this fajita kit is still great! I mean, it costs either £4.75 or £5.50 which is more than double the price of your average fajita kit by Old El Paso and the likes sooo it is an investment to say the least. But what's new?! If you have been Coeliac for a while, like me, you're already used to (and infuriated by) the fact that gluten free food is extortionately priced. It's up to you to make the decision to buy the ingredients to make fajita's separately or go for this kit by B-Free. For me, it's just really refreshing to see gluten free kits like these in the supermarkets and I suppose that's purely because of the novelty that goes with it. Being able to pick something fun up like this and feel 'normal' is what sold it for me but at the same time I won't be affording to do it again any time soon. So there are pros and cons but overall it's another exciting development in what is looking like a bright future on the 'Free From' Aisle.

Amy