It had only been like 5 months since I'd been home, and in that time Canada's gluten-free awareness levels had gone way up. In my family's suburban town, Whitby, Ontario, there are BIG gf product sections in most chain supermarkets. This might be another good reason to defect to Canada and forces me to question, "Why did I move to New York again?" I enthusiastically loaded up, of course. First, I love Kinnikinnick products and I don't think I'm alone. I see on their website that their stuff is available at Garden of Eden on 14th Street, which is wrong. I tracked down the U.S. distributor and discovered that The Health Nuts location at 2141 Broadway & 75th carries most of the Kinnikinnick line! On my bread rating scale, Kinnikinnick and Food for Life are tied. We've also tried their chocolate and lemon cake mixes and both were divine.
Also, I discovered a bread company from Vancouver that produces Quejos, a Brazilian cheese bun that is gluten-free and yeast-free, plus they offer a dairy-free version. They're made with manioc powder (the manioc plant is a tuber) which produces a similar doughy texture to tapioca flour. The only store that carries them in the U.S. is in Santa Monica, CA, BUT, they ship anywhere in the U.S., and I feel these little buns are very worth the effort.
Click on thumbnail to see toasted Quejos
That brings me to Il Fornello
restaurant. There are several locations in the Toronto area ... we
went to the one on King Street. They serve gf pizza and pasta and I
ordered both ... it's the kind of sacrifice I'm always willing to make. Lo and behold, Il Fornello uses Quejos pizza crusts! AND, they use Tinkyada gf pasta! Tinkyada is awesome, never mushy, and brown rice-based so it's good for you too. I ordered the Pollo E Pesto w/ Tinkyada and it was divine. Eating pasta that was prepared for me in a restaurant was almost too much to handle. The creamy pesto sauce was absolutely delicious and the lightly toasted pine nuts were a perfect topper. (We passed on posting my Pollo E Pesto picture due to poor quality)
The pizza is Italian sausage, oven cured tomatoes, and grilled red onions, very tasty fresh toppings. Since the Quejos crust is made of tuber, it's crispy on the outside and kinda chewy on the inside .. different from a rice flour crust. I thoroughly enjoyed Il Fornello, its gf friendliness, its tastes, and its atmosphere. My family really enjoyed their non-gf dishes. So ... fellow Canadian celiacs in the Toronto area, and gluten-free tourists should go get their Italian on at Il Fornello. You won't be disappointed. Ciao.
