Gluten-Free Food Review - Pei Wei

I recently decided that Jon and I would go eat eat Pei Wei.  I have eaten there before and kinda knew that I should avoid but this time I decided to ask for the gluten-free menu.  (Tip - don't bother with the online gluten-free menu ask for the complete allergy listing they have in the store - that's where I found out they have rice noodles).  Well I am glad I did because there were only two dinner meal options listed.  I am not freaking kidding.  And of course most of the other items had chicken (which I also am lucky enough to be allergic too).  Yea I am awesome.

So I ended up picking one of them and letting the girl know it was the gluten-free choice.  The Sweet and Sour Shrimp with gluten-free rice noodles.

Jon and I went to the table and I was very super excited.  There was even one of those red hot sauce mixes already on the table.

Jon enjoyed a fortune cookie while I watched and then he left me "open" my fortune and he ate the cookie.  I know I was being so super good.

The food arrived and it looked awesome.  Especially the rice noodles.

However, when I took my first bite of shrimp I thought I felt a distinct crunch.  No not a shell kind of crunch, more like a "this has been dipped in wash then flour and fried" kind of crunch.

Oh no right?  Yea. Totally oh no.

Well I tried to peel off what I thought was the crust (as we will call it).  I couldn't so I kept eating the noodles and what not until I decided what I should do about the shrimp.

I ate another one.  I knew there was something not right.  The crust seemed to be too gluten-like.  So I tried to tear the next shrimp and sure enough a coating of some kind seperated from the shrimp.

Well now what was I going to do.  I doubted that they would coat the gluten-free shrimp in something else to fry them and I was having doubts about how often they actually made gluten-free meals at this location in the first place...

I insisted to Jon that I didn't think it was right... but I didn't mention it.  I know that was super stupid of me.

However, next time I will be sure to ask if their gluten-free shrimp are coated in anything or not...  Until then gluten warriors, beware of the Pei Wei.

Much luck and love.

Till next time,