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