Feeling Normal Again At a Restaurant: Priceless.

I went to a restaurant and ordered gluten free pizza! Hallelujah! I am home in Arkansas this weekend, and Nanga (my dear paternal grandmother) and I had a "date night." While we were driving to Little Rock to take her jeans shopping, I was googling "gluten free restaurants" on my phone. BTW, if you ever have to deal with a food allergy/intolerance, having a phone with Internet access is almost a MUST. But I digress. My google results included several chains with gluten free menu options, but a particular one caught my eye with the phrase "gluten free pizza."

We decided to brave it out and headed to Boston's. I did not have high expectation, as it is a chain sports bar & grill attached to the Holiday Inn at the Airport Exit in Little Rock. Typically, those kind of restaurants are more necessity than pleasure. But I was determined to check out this gf crust, and sweet Nanga is up for anything as long as she doesn't have to order. Plus, I am going back on strict no dairy starting tomorrow, so I decided to go out with a bang!

We ordered a Sicilian pizza on a gluten free crust, which included pepperoni, Italian sausage, peppers, onions, marinara, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and fresh basil. Their gf pizzas come in small only, and cost $2 extra. It was GREAT. The crust was, OF COURSE, not the best crust I had ever had. A wheat crust would have been much better, obviously. I am sure this crust was frozen, as the need isn't great enough to have all the fresh ingredients on hand. But for GF, it was GREAT. It blended in with the pizza and did not stand out or have a strange aftertaste. The ingredients, surprisingly enough, were fresh enough to occupy my taste buds. I was VERY excited.

There's not a lot of these restaurants in the south... 2 in Flordia, 1 in Georgia, several in Texas, and 2 in Arkansas. They are all over the west coast and the north. However, it gives me great hope that more and more restaurants are starting to see the need for this, and will hopefully be providing that option in the future. I mean seriously, all they need to do is keep the frozen crust on hand!