Plenty of choice comes with new gluten-free menu

Big Bowl now has a complete gluten-free menu with plenty of choices, from appetizers and entrees to desserts and even a wheat-free beer.

The gluten-free items have their own menu to call home, eliminating the need to sort through all of the restaurant’s choices.

To show just how important and serious Big Bowl regards the gluten-free menu, it is following the same protocol for life-threatening food allergies. All ingredients and utensils are kept separate on the line and in storage. A chef signs off on every order and a manager – not the server – brings the gluten-free dish to the diner.

“We take this as seriously as our allergy culture,” says Big Bowl president Dan McGowan. “Whatever your restaurant or business believes in, it has to be instilled in the culture.”

Because of the prominence of soy sauce in Asian cooking, Chinese and Thai cuisine is typically the kind of food that's not gluten-free. To create this menu, Executive Chef Marc Bernard scrutinized every product to ensure that wheat or other less obvious ingredients such as the commonly found modified food starch were not present. Tamari and a gluten-free oyster sauce are used instead.

 “We’ve taken away the need to cobble a meal together and the monotony of eating the same foods for those who have gluten sensitivities,” says Bernard. “There are two dishes that are only on the gluten-free menu for space reasons but they are as equally outstanding as anything on the main menu, and of course, anyone can order them.

The gluten free menu features two appetizers – vegetable summer roll and Thai chicken lettuce wraps.

Entrees include chicken and broccoli, kung pao chicken, orange chicken, Mongolian beef and shrimp with snow peas.

All four Big Bowl signature pad thai dishes are featured on the gluten-free menu as well as two desserts – lemon ginger crème brulee and mochi (ice cream wrapped in sweetened rice confection.

The wheat free beer in Illinois and Reston is New Grist, a crisp, refreshing ale made in Milwaukee. The Minnesota restaurants are serving the celebrated Estrella Dauro from Barcelona.

Because of Big Bowl’s commitment to the gluten-free menu, it is being introduced one restaurant at a time to ensure a smooth implementation. The gluten-free menu is now in place at all the Chicago and suburban locations. It will be rolled out in Reston on July 22 and in the Minneapolis area restaurants on July 27 (Roseville), July 28 (Minnetonka) and July 29 (Edina).

Let us know what you think of the new gluten-free menu - your comments are appreciated.