Rice Dream Rice Nog

Last year around this time, my roommate Vanessa convinced me to try her Rice Dream Rice Nog.  It took a lot of convincing since I had never warmed to the taste of egg nog.  After much ribbing, she got me to take a sip... and I've been hooked ever since.

Rice Nog is light and delicious; it's perfectly flavored with cinnamon and is alcohol free.  The best part: it's gluten free (and marked as such)!  Look at the lower left hand corner on the front of the above package -- do you see the upside down triangle?  It reads "Gluten Free."  The below picture is a bit blurry, but hopefully gives you an idea:

It's a great seasonable product that is cholesterol, lactose, dairy, soy, and gluten free!  It's also 100% vegetarian.  My vegan roommate last year drank it, but they may have changed the recipe so please check the ingredients to confirm.  It is also shelf stable, so you can stock up on lots of boxes to last you well past the holiday season.

I've found Rice Dream Rice Nog in my local Pavilions, but when I went to Whole Foods today it was not in stock.  Just a warning!

Do you love it or do you love it?

- - -

Rice Dream

If you can't find it in stores, purchase is through Amazon here!: Rice Dream Rice Nog

Sweet Lady Jane Bakery

Look at what I found while Hilary and I were waiting for our churros at Xooro -- we walked over to Sweet Lady Jane Bakery:

OK, so it didn't look quite like that in the store, but it's a chocolate flourless cake!  Hilary brought me in there because she wanted to pick something up for her mother -- she knows I normally don't frequent establishments that discriminate against us Celiacs!  It was my lucky day, and after asking the owner about the preparation of the cake I was convinced that the cake was perfect for me.

And indeed it was!  I warmed it up for about 15 seconds in the microwave and fell in love upon first bite.  It was perfectly sized with a great texture -- not too hard and not too soft.

The person who helped me pick out the cake told me that they don't always have it in stock, so definitely call ahead to see if they have them in stock.  If they do, it's a great treat for you Celiacs while your non-Celiac friends munch on all the great gluten-filled stuff the shop serves.

After perusing the Bakery's website, it looks as if the Chocolate Flourless Decadence (the official name) can be found in over 15 Ralph's in the L.A. region.  Check out the listing here.

Do you love it or do you love it?
- - -
Sweet Lady Jane Bakery
8360 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA 90069 (Map)
323.653.7145

ZPizza's ZBites

ZPizza recently launched a new gluten free product: ZBites.  I had tweeted with ZPizza about the new product and was excited to finally try it.  After stopping in at the new coffee shop on Larchmont, Bricks & Scones (full post coming soon!), I stopped in at ZPizza to finally check out ZBites.

ZBites are white meat chicken bites with gluten free breading, similar to a chicken nugget but way fresher.  In the interest of full disclosure, I've eaten close to three chicken nuggets in my entire life.  They just never really appealed to me.  However the grass is always greener and after being diagnosed with Celiac I was sad that I could no longer sample them.  ZPizza has saved the day with their new ZBites -- these chicken nuggets are way better than I remember chicken nuggets being.

ZPizza's chicken is the main ingredient and is definitely higher quality than any chicken nugget I have ate in my pre-Celiac days.  The chicken tasted fresh and the bites were sizable -- certainly not your run-of-the-mill frozen chicken nugget.  The gluten free breading wasn't as thick as gluten-filled chicken nugget breading is.  It instead was more of a light dusting than a crunchy outside covering.  The crunch that chicken nuggets often had is nowhere to be found in the ZBites.  I think that the lack of crunch is a testament to how fresh the chicken is -- instead of crunching into a defrosted chicken nugget you're biting into food that tastes fresh.  What a novel idea, right?

I liked ZPizza's ZBites, but I can't say I'll be going back for more -- I'm just not that into chicken nuggets.  For Celiacs looking for a chicken nugget replacement, this is definitely the best option.  The chicken tastes great and the gluten free coating flavors it well.  ZPizza also offers three gluten free dipping options: Raspberry Chipotle, Ranch, and BBQ.  An order of ZBites will run you $6.50 without tax, and is definitely a large portion!

ZBites are not yet available at all locations, so make sure to call your local ZPizza to see if they are available before headed over.  As of October 2009, ZBites were available at these locations.

Do you love it or do you love it?
- - -
ZPizza
123 North Larchmont
Los Angeles, CA 90004 (Map)
323.466.6969
-
You can follow ZPizza on Twitter here.
You can follow me on Twitter here.

Green Leaves in West Hollywood

This will be a short post, but I wanted to update you about some disconcerting news.

I heard from my friend Justin, who works at Real Food Daily, that Green Leaves Vegan had issues with not being entirely vegan.  I snooped around the internet to see if there was any more support for what he said, and found a great post by Quarry Girl that tested 17 Los Angeles establishments that purport to be vegan.  In that post Quarry Girl admits that the study she conducted only represented a snapshot in time and that by the time readers checked out the post a restaurant included on the study may have changed its practices.  Green Leaves Vegan's establishment was understandably upset after finding out about Quarry Girl's post, as it finished as a "Big Time Loser."  Quarry Girl was threatened with legal action over her comments and updated her post with the letter sent to her by Green Leaves' attorney here.  Green Leaves even went as far as offering Quarry Girl the opportunity to retest its food;  this may render a vegan's concerns moot, but I wanted to provide the full history of Quarry Girl's study.

Why am I writing this post?  Well, after my visit to Xooro today, Hilary and I drove up N. Kings Road and hit a red light at Santa Monica Boulevard.  Right in front of me I saw "Green Leaves" with an abundance of promotional signs.  When I arrived home, I pulled up Green Leaves' website and saw that it listed the new West Hollywood location that I had seen.

What was truly disconcerting, apart from the above vegan tests, was that I now do not see any items being marked gluten free on the restaurant's menu.  I'm not sure what caused this change, but I wanted to alert my readers as soon as possible that the pancakes I previously posted about may no longer be made in a gluten free manner.  I called the restaurant and they said they still had them, but I have not been able to visit the restaurant in person to confirm this.

I will check into this as soon as possible, but be warned before eating at Green Leaves Vegan that the items previously marked gluten free may no longer be made gluten free.

Green Leaves Vegan
8351 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069 (Map)
323.848.2345
- - -
1769 Hillhurst Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90027 (Map)
323.664.2345

Xooro West Hollywood

I've been meaning to go to Xooro's new West Hollywood location for a long time now.  However, I've called a few times and whenever I was ready to go they didn't have any gluten free churros in stock.  My schedule and Xooro's finally coincided today, and my friend Hilary and I went to check out the churro shops new location.  Xooro's first location was in Santa Monica; the link to the left was one of my very first posts here on Gluten Freeways so enjoy the throwback.

Xooro's location on Melrose is certainly cozier than the Santa Monica location; instead of the two tables that were at the Santa Monica location last time I visited, the Melrose location utilizes stools at countertops that overlook Melrose Ave.  I enjoyed setup of the Xooro on Melrose as much as I did it's Santa Monica location; the shop is located just blocks from a variety of trendy Melrose shops (Marc Jacobs, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Diesel, Fred Segal, Johnny Cupcakes, etc.) so you can see people walking outside of the shop.

I've written about the churros that Xooro serves up and the one on Melrose are no exception -- they are great!  The flavors are what really make the churros great.  Hilary and I ordered three gluten free churros and split them -- we had the Triple Chocolate, the Dulce de Leche, and Jordan's Favorite.  Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera to take pictures of the awesomeness... you'll have to go here to check out the fritters on the website.  Oh wait!  I just found a picture of the churros:

That's just a little preview of the filled churros.  Hilary and I really liked the Dulce de Leche and Jordan's Favorite; the Triple Chocolate was a little too rich for Hilary's taste and by that point I was pretty full too.  Three churros definitely does a body good.  You can also order original churros without any filling, although I would strongly recommend that you go for the filling.  

I also strongly recommend that you call the Xooro location you are going to visit to make sure they have gluten free churros available in stock.  As I said earlier, there have been times that I've called the West Hollywood location and they did not have gluten free churros on hand.  Also be mindful that the Santa Monica location is closed on Mondays (at the time of this post).  The gluten free churros also take a bit longer to prepare than do the non gluten free churros, but we didn't mind the wait.

Aside from those caveats, enjoy!

Do you love it or do you love it?

Xooro

8360 Melrose Avenue #107

West Hollywood, CA 90069 (Map)

323.951.9592

- - -

125 Broadway

Santa Monica, CA 90401 (Map)

310.260.2919

- - -

Please Note:  I have not visited this location and am not sure if it is open yet; it is listed on Xooro's website.  I strongly recommend calling the Santa Monica location to inquire about the National City location before visiting. 

Westfield Plaza Bonita Mall

3030 Plaza Bonita Road., 2452

National City, CA 91950 (Map)

Baking Tips from Babycakes

Before you know it Angelenos will be able to experience this delicious awesomeness that is Babycakes.  Of course, the bakery already has a cookbook out so Angelenos can experience the terrific flavors of Babycakes on their own.

If you've bought the cookbook (filled with great teacake, cake, muffin, cookie recipes and more!) and you need a bit of help with the gluten free, vegan baking, look no further:


BabyCakes NYC: Some Baking Tips! from BabyCakes NYC on Vimeo.


In even better news, Babycakes' owner Erin McKenna has just announced that she will be working on a second cookbook in collaboration with Clarkson Potter, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group.  Can't wait for that!

Do you love it or do you love it?

Babycakes
248 Broome Street
New York, NY 10002 (Map)
212.677.5047
- - -
Coming soon to Downtown L.A.:
130 East 6th Street (btwn S. Main and S. Los Angeles)
Los Angeles, CA 90014 (Map)

French Meadow Gluten Free

In preparation for Halloween I visited my local Pavilions in WeHo to pick up some Halloween snacks.  My Halloween plans consisted of walking Santa Monica Boulevard -- for those of you who don't know, every year the Boulevard hosts over 400,000 partygoers on Halloween.  Since my friends and I were planning to walk the Boulevard, I was expecting people to want to walk (or stumble) back to my apartment after the night's revelries.

While I was walking around I stopped in at Pavilions' gluten free section, right near Jamba Juice.  I saw that they were excepting to receive Betty Crocker's Gluten Free mixes and had a nice selection of gluten free products.

When I did a 180 to walk away from the section, I was pleasantly surprised to see a new product from French Meadow.  I'd never seen this label before so I figured I would check it out.  Pavilions had a display with chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and assorted muffins -- all gluten free, of course.

I picked up a box of four cupcakes, a muffin, and a cookie and headed out of Pavilions armed with gluten free snacks for me and gluten free snacks for my friends (corn chips, Starburst, Skittles, some veggies and gluten free hummus).

When I got home I tried to focus on some much needed studying... but the cupcakes got the best of me.  I knew I had to try one.  They looked really fresh and, for somebody not used to fresh cupcakes (instead of the normally frozen ones), I had to dig in.  I definitely was not disappointed with my decision after trying one of these cupcakes -- it was great!  There was an initial hesitation on my part that the cupcake wouldn't taste good because it was available in a large grocery store.  I was definitely proven wrong.  Although French Meadow is based in Minnesota, these cupcakes tasted especially fresh.  While for the freshest gluten free cupcakes in L.A. I'd still turn to The Sensitive Baker, I appreciated that these were available so close to where I live.

The cupcake wasn't crumbly as many gluten free cupcakes are; instead it tasted like I remember a gluten filled cupcake tasting.  The chocolate chip cookie was great too, especially for a packaged cookie.  Again, while I prefer fresh cookies from The Sensitive Baker, French Meadow offers some of the very best packaged products I've found.  In a blind taste test, French Meadow might even be able to fool me into believing that it was a fresh cupcake -- it was that good!

The Apple Cinnamon muffin was tasty as well, however it was extremely crumbly.  When I think back to my gluten eating days (I miss the muffins in The Tower!) I remember muffins being a pastry that often crumbled.  On the plus side, the muffin was still moist and tasted just as fresh as the cupcakes and cookie.

French Meadow is an awesome gluten free brand; I can't wait to check out more of their stuff!

Do you love it or do you love it?

French Meadow
Looking for French Meadow by you? Store Locator