Cote Brasserie
I had lunch in Cote in Upper Street, Islington yesterday.
I had a very good leek and potato soup followed by chicken and frites from their lunch menu.
I wasn’t paying, but at £9.95 it was good value. They seemed to know what was OK for me, well.
I shall use them again.
New Gluten-Free Food Rules
I was in the new Kings Cross Station yesterday and they have a Leon restaurant, which offers quite a lot of gluten-free meals.
One of their staff told me, that new regulations mean you can’t call food gluten-free unless it is cooked in a separate gluten-free kitchen with no gluten in it.
So going in to a restaurant and saying can I have scrambled eggs and smoked salmon and expect it to be gluten-free is off the radar.
Leon get round it by saying that particular dishes are made from gluten-free ingredients.
If this new law has come in, it basically means that no restaurant will offer gluten-free food, as they can be prosecuted by the local authority, unless they go for two separate kitchens.
This new law may explain why Starbucks seem to wrap their very good chocolate brownies in a cellophane wrap and keep most of them out the back.
The New Kings Cross Opens A Day Early
I hadn’t intended to go into the new part of Kings Cross station until it opened on the 19th. But I found it was open on Sunday the 18th.
It is impressive and even has a restaurant that does gluten-free fast-food; Leon
I have added some more pictures taken on the Monday. I’ll probably add a few more as time goes on.
There is a very good article on the design here in the Evening Standard.
I’m Getting Fed Up With Carluccio’s
I should say that I have no complaint against Carluccio’s. Quite the contrary. It’s just that on my travels around London and sometimes further away they are the one place I can trust to get a light gluten-free meal at an affordable price.
Take my trip last week to the East India Dock Basin. It was either go to their restaurant in Canary Wharf, the one in Islington or go home. I chose the last option.
If anything the complaint is against other restaurants, who don’t provide a gluten-free option. In some chains like, La Porchetta, I know that some choices are gluten-free, but when I ask, they treat me like a leper and tell me to go elsewhere.
A Marks & Spencer Cheese and Pickle Gluten Free Sandwich
On my way to Brighton today, I bought one of these sandwiches.
A Marks & Spencer Cheese and Pickle Gluten Free Sandwich
It wasn’t too bad, although the packaging wasn’t designed for people with a gammy left hand.
As you can see, I made a bit of a mess.
The egg salad sandwiches are much better, but all you seem to be ab;le to get is the cheese and pickle these days.
Are Lager Sales Going Down the Toilet?
I’ve never had a drink of lager in a British pub, as I’ve always drunk real beer.
Even now, I prefer one of St. Peter’s brewery’s real gluten-free beers.
But it would appear that according to this article, I am now becoming more typical as lager sales are falling.
Where’s the Gluten-Free Food at Eastfield?
I went to John Lewis today at Eastfield, to see if I could get some blinds. They were very helpful and I now have a good base price.
What I also wanted was a good late lunch to set me up for the weekend.
But could I find any gluten-free food? No! But then I didn’t check out all the restaurants. Surprisingly, I didn’t find a decent Indian restaurant, especially when you consider that a good proportion of the clients are of South Asian descent.
So in the end, I took the DLR to Carluccio’s at Canary Wharf and had an excellent meal there.
Do We Really Need More Subways?
It has been announced today, that Subway is to open a large number of new outlets and create a lot of jobs.
The jobs are welcome, but do we really need all these sandwich shops selling obesity?
As a coeliac the answer is an overwhelming no, as they have no gluten-free products. But then we’re all going to pick up the bill for the obesity through the NHS.
One of the biggest problems too is that they might create a lot of jobs, but how many small places will be put out of business, thus adding to the jobless pile.
We should tax all fast food shops on the calories of the average order.
That would fix them! Hopefully, by restructuring the product ine.
I particular hate Subway for two other reasons; they are always throwing junk mail through my letter box, despite a prohibition notice and lots of pavements are blocked by their salesmen handing out flyers.
Do we really want to import the United States’s worst export; obesity?
An Insult In My Recycling Bin
Thursday is recycyling day and I didn’t bother to get my recycling bin in. So someone put a present in it.
An Insult In My Recycling Bin
It was a half-eaten steak pie. Is this a deliberate insult as obviously the junk food isn’t gluten-free? They could have put it in my wheelie bin for general rubbish, as that was actually next to the other bin. But they would have had to lift the lid!
If we assume it wasn’t a deliberate insult, it just goes to show that those eating junk food have few manners and feel it is their right to throw the remains anywhere.
It’s a pity that the pie didn’t have a name on it, as I would have someone to sue, if I felt the effort worthwhile.
Accessing Medical Records On Line
The government is thinking of allowing this.
I’m all for it!
At my previous doctor’s surgery, I was allowed to read my then paper notes with impunity and often did with the nurse when she gave me my B12 injection every couple of months or so. I found the free access very useful, but unfortunately my notes for the first twenty years of my life have been lost and they might have been very helpful in sorting out my various allergies in addition to the coeliac disease.
Over the last few years, I’ve often posted medical details and results of any tests, such as those for cholesterol, in this blog, so I can access them easily, if I need them.
Last summer, when I had the stroke in Hong Kong, some of what I had posted proved a help to the doctors and possibly hastened my recovery. It certainly cut down the number of blood tests.
So, the government’s proposal to put all our medical notes on line is to me a very positive step towards providing better health care. We should also be allowed to add our own comments and observations. For instance, I’ve just had a tooth extracted and that should be added, as should my supervised experiments with Keppra.
The Anonymous Widower 