P.F. Chang's Deliciously Delectable Gluten Free Offerings

Since it's the weekend and all, I thought I'd share the fabulous eating-out experience I had this week. Before you start reading this post, let me be clear: I did not eat all this food by myself! Just in case anyone is wondering if I'm a closet gorger, let me reassure you. I shared all of these lovely entrees and dessert with my good friend Joyce, who owns Grandpa's Kitchen. We get together on occasion and critique the gluten free lunchtime offerings at local restaurants. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it, right?

To be honest, I hadn't ever eaten at P.F. Chang's until this Tuesday. Which happened to be great timing for me, because they had just added five--count 'em---five new beef dishes to their gluten free menu on Monday. I felt like one of those fans who camps out overnight to get tickets for KISS or something. Their gluten free menu is now included on the back of their regular menus. It used to be separate so you had to ask for one when you were seated, but now they are right with everything else. How's that for making us feel normal? I tried the Mongolian Beef, and it was so perfect. I can't even think of a better word to describe it. It's a little spicy and sweet, and the sauce is caramelized onto the beef medallions making it a delicious combination of candied protein that I couldn't stop shoveling in my mouth.

Then I tried the Lemon Chicken, which was chicken battered in cornstarch to make it crispy and then a slightly sweet and sour lemon citrus sauce. Divine. This one was also being shoveled. I liked that the chicken was served with broccoli, one of my favorite vegetables.

We began our meal with the Chicken Lettuce Wraps, and we were so hungry they had to bring us extra lettuce (!) to finish off our chicken. These were good, the filling was pretty standard, but the fun part was the sauce we dipped them in. It's pretty amazing that they brought us gluten free soy sauce on the spot so we could do the three sauce mixing-thing they've got going on over there. If you don't know about the dipping sauce, it's chili paste and hot mustard mixed into soy sauce...mmmm. Yum.

And the perfect ending to the meal was this:

The Dome of Chocolate. I'm not kidding. That's really what it's called! It's a chocolate truffle-type dessert with berries and raspberry sauce. You could really die from a calorie coma after this one. This is one dessert that's definitely shareable.

The best part of eating out at P.F. Chang's was that when we asked about our gluten free food our server and the person who delivered the food (I don't know what their title is, but they're all over restaurants nowadays) knew exactly what was gluten free and what was available to us. There is a part of their kitchen that is dedicated to gluten free preparation, so we had no worries about cross-contamination. And the food was really, really good to boot. Since I never cook Asian food at home unless I have to, this was a great relief to me. Now if I want great Asian food, I'm minutes away from a delicious overload that is worth every last bite. Thank you, P.F. Chang's!

Happy eating!