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Dave July 13, 2009

New Cascadia Traditional Bakery New Location

We finally got a chance to visit the New Cascadia Traditional Bakery on Saturday. At around noon we got on our bikes and rode down to their new location. It’s at 1700 SE 6th Ave at SE Market. So that’s on 6th, just two blocks south of Hawthorne. I was a little unfamiliar with where it was. It’s over in the slightly industrial area down between SE 7th and SE Grand. It’s around the Paper Zone but a little further south.

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They look like they’re still moving in and working on making the place more comfortable. The great thing is that they’re offering coffee and espresso drinks, so now you can sit down and have a nice gluten-free treat with a drink. They will also be setting up outdoor seating very soon. Like their NW outlet often was, there was a line to get to the counter.

Most of the items have signs letting you know if they contain any common allergens. For instance, the gluten-free coffee cake here contains butter, eggs, and nuts. We both got lattes. Sienna got a regular latte and I got a soy latte. They were both awesome. We also got a scone and a piece of coffee cake. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any cinnamon rolls left. Since my last review of one of their gluten-free cinnamon rolls was less than enthusiastic, I wanted to try one that was fresh from the source.

My coffee cake was awesome. It was crumbly, sweet, and had the right amount of cinnamon. We also both liked the scone. I normally don’t like anything even resembling a raisin in any kind of baked good (especially cookies) but was able to put that aside for the sake of this review.

The real star of the show, however, was the service. Everybody was friendly and enthusiastic. When we asked about sitting outside, our barrista offered to help carry a table out for us. We bought a pizza crust (review coming later) and accidentally ripped it while putting it in our bike bag. When we took it back inside to ask them if there was a way to fix it, they gave us a new one for free, which was amazingly generous.

We’ve been reviewing a lot of places that might be a little risky for people who are really seriously gluten-intolerant, so it’s nice to be able to recommend a place without reservations, because it’s totally gluten-free and the facility is gluten-free. You should go check it out! Go here for more New Cascadia Traditional Bakery reviews.

Dave July 7, 2009

News Bites: Gluten Free Hipcooks and New Cascadia Location

Hipcooks Announces Gluten-Free Class

First up, regular readers will remember that Hipcooks and we put up a survey asking what sort of gluten-free class our readers would like. The results are in and Monika has created a gluten-free cooking class. Portland is the first branch to get it! Don’t forget that some of their other classes are also gluten-free. Here is the current Portland class list.

The gluten-free class will be at 6 – 10 PM, August 9 in the Portland Oregon Hipcooks at 3808 N. Williams, Suite 120.

Here is the class description:

Our first Gluten-Free themed Class! You asked for it you got it! Meals on the go, bread-like baking, and dessert making. Also, most are also dairy free, with the exception of a little butter from time to time, so that’s how we’ll roll. This extra-long session has input from our in-house nutritionist, offer advice on meal-planning, and will come with a wonderful take-home cookbook packed with recipes and GF tips.

* No-wheat quiche
* 2 fun pastas with 2 fun sauces
* Adventures with Quinoa and other grains
* No-wheat breadsticks, and sandwich making
* 2 great cakes

Featured drink: Wine is GF!

We love Hipcooks. Check out our reviews of some of their gluten-free cooking classes.

New Cascadia Bakery Location Open

Next up, New Cascadia Traditional Bakery has announced that they are moved into their new cafe/bakery as of July 3. They have been updating their progress on their blog.

The new location is 1700 SE 6th Ave at SE Market (that’s two blocks south of Hawthorne). Besides their awesome gluten-free baked goods, they are serving Stumptown coffee and espresso drinks, and will have WIFI. We love New Cascadia Traditional Bakery and hope to visit soon! They are also planning an opening party, so we’ll be on the lookout for that.

Check out our past gluten free reviews and news about New Cascadia.

Dave July 3, 2009

Restaurant Review: Sweetpea bakery

Beware! Since we published this review we’ve received a lot of feedback about the place, most of it negative. Also, we’ve had a few people say that they’re sure they “got glutened” by eating the baked goods there. We’ve found that when we ask their staff questions, we get different answers depending on who we ask and what day of the week it is, which makes us worry. We’re going to investigate further and will report back what we find, but in the meantime I think the best advice is to be careful and maybe ask lots and lots of questions before you get something there. End Later Note.

Later Note – January 2010 – We’ve corresponded with the owner of Sweetpea. They have done a lot of research on baking gluten-free goods and maintain that their gluten-free options really are gluten-free. At the same time, they stress that they are a bakery that uses wheat in a shared area with their gluten-free products. They say that they are very careful about avoiding cross-contamination, but as an end result, folks who are very sensitive to gluten should probably stay away. we haven’t been by to check them out again, but will post about it when we do. – End later Note

It’s a little premature to call this a “restaurant review” because they’re not on our restaurant list, and they’re more of a bakery, AND we’ve only ever had their muffins, BUT they’re in Portland AND they’ve got gluten-free stuff and thus we’re covering it. Regular readers may remember that we posted about Sweetpea Bakery having a gluten-free brunch on this past Father’s Day.

Sweetpea is down on SE Stark on the corner of 12th Street. It’s in a little vegan ghetto right next to Herbivore and Food Fight!. Did we mention it’s a vegan bakery? I don’t know about anybody else, but I love vegan bakeries and here’s why: Vegan bakeries have attitude. Since they’re a vegan bakery, they feel like everything they make has to be awesome so that people don’t think vegan food is terrible. And thus most vegan baked goods are way better than anything you’re going to get at a regular bakery.

This is certainly not as fetching as the case at Pix Patisserie, but the goods are pleasing to the eye. When we went, they had one kind of gluten-free muffin, gluten-free brownies, one kind of gluten-free cookie, and these here cupcakes. In the interest of full disclosure, we didn’t ask them what steps they take to prevent cross-contamination. (It’s a new goal of mine to always ask that and report it here.) We did, however, ask about the gluten-free muffins. The muffins are different flavors depending on the day. This particular day, the muffins were coconut.

These muffins were awesome! They were fluffy, moist, and delicious. In fact, they were almost like the perfect love child of a cupcake and a muffin. We plan on going back to Sweetpea on one of their gluten-free brunches and giving a full report.

We want to know: OK so we really want to know, how do you gluten-free people feel about buying baked goods from a bakery that uses wheat? I have to say I feel a little nervous. Have you been to the Sweetpea for their gluten-free brunch? We want to hear from you. Let us know in the comments.

Times we have visited: 1 (so your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: kind of expensive.

Dave April 26, 2009

Gluten Free Food Fair Wrap-up

We got to the 2009 Portland Oregon Gluten Free Food Fair a little late. They were already doing the lottery drawings. We walked around and sampled a lot of food, took some photos, and talked to people at the booths.

Sift Bakery – They are a gluten-free and vegan bakery. A lot of cafes in Portland carry their cookies, which I think are pretty good. In my opinion they make the best packaged gluten-free cookie. They also had some cooking sauces there. They had a couple different kinds of Thai curry paste, a hot chili oil, a Thai hot sauce, and also a Thai peanut sauce. Their peanut sauce was good but I make better. 😉 They also had falafel crackers that were really good.

Mississippi Pizza Pub (See our review of the Mississippi Pizza Pub) – They were handing out squares of pizza. While we were walking around the tables, a couple of times I overheard someone tell a friend “There’s more pizza out. Let’s go!” The pizza was good. Sienna asked the guy there about how to get a crust more crispy and he said that olive oil is good for that. Now we’ll have to experiment!

Muruku Snacks – SCL Marketing – One of the more interesting items at the fair. These are basically like fried chow mein noodles, and are delicious. I love fried chow mein noodles!

Gloria’s Delicious Gluten Free Desserts – This person was selling dessert cookbooks. We tried her samples and they were really good.

New Cascadia Traditional Bakery (See our reviews of New Cascadia Traditional Bakery) – We’re big fans of New Cascadia. They had a bunch of their gluten free products to sample. I tried a piece of their coffee cake and Sienna tried their cranberry raisin walnut bread.

Ener-G Foods – Ener-G Foods had a booth, which I was really excited about. Mostly because they seem kind of hit-or-miss to me and it’s nice to sample a bunch of things without having to buy them. I liked their pretzels but wasn’t excited about their cookies, bread or bars.

Angeline’s Bakery – Angeline’s Bakery had a bunch of bread and cookie samples out. Their bread is very sort of white-bready, but good white-bready.

Some of the booths we stopped by but didn’t take photos of:

Papa G’s – They make different tofu meat substitutes which we both love, and also have a vegan organic deli with some gluten free items.

Wendy Cohan – Author of the Gluten Free Resource Guide, who also has classes on gluten free cooking. We talked to her for a while about making gluten free pizza crusts and she had a lot of tips for us.

New Traditions Bakery – I’ve looked these folks up on the internet and can’t find anything. They had a bunch of different kind of cheesecakes. The cheesecakes are free of gluten, nuts, eggs, and dairy, which brings up the question: What the heck are they made of? Whatever it is, there was a sign that they did contain soy. I thought they were good, although they really had more the texture of a frozen ice cream cake.

Lingonberries Market – The gluten free, wheat free, allergy-friendly foods grocery store in Vancouver Washington, which we’ve been to once, but keep meaning to get back to so we can take some pictures and do a review.

There were a lot more booths than I’ve included here. There were some booths selling baking mixes, one booth with exercise “power bars” that pretty much tasted like all the rest of the ones you’ve ever tasted, and even a cosmetics booth. After we left, we were waiting for the light to turn so we could cross the street, and a couple of people drove up in a van, rolled down a window, and asked us if it was worth going to the fair. We told them definitely yes. It’s always good to check out new things and find out what is good (or not) without having to buy so much stuff. We’re looking forward to next year’s food fair.

Dave April 21, 2009

Bakery: Mariposa Review Redux

During our recent road trip to Los Angeles we went a little out of our way to visit the Mariposa Gluten Free Bakery. Those of you who read our review on Mariposa Bakery in Oakland, California in February will remember that we liked their brownies quite a bit. In February it was only Sienna who visited so this was my first time at Mariposa.

On our visit, we talked to the person at the counter for a while. She was very friendly and was able to to discuss food allergy information about any of their products. So here comes the eye candy. They are very well stocked. There are gluten free cookies, biscotti, bagels, muffins, coffee cake, more cookies, muffins, cheesecake, chocolate cake, carrot cake. Everything gluten free!

They also now have a freezer stocked with various gluten-free goodies. They have a couple different kinds of gluten free ravioli, several different kinds of premade take-and-bake pizza, pizza dough, and breads.

I had one of their chocolate muffins. I’d like to be able to say that I took a picture of it but I was too busy devouring the thing. Their muffins are moist, light, fluffy, and flavorful. I also got a gluten free sour cream coffee cake. They describe this cake as “Layered with a sweet and crunchy walnut and cinnamon brown sugar streusel, this tender 4 1/2″ diameter cake melts in your mouth” and they are completely correct. Here are the ingredients: sour cream, organic unrefined cane sugar, GF flour mix (organic brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour), butter, dark brown cane sugar, walnuts, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

This coffee cake was INSANE and you would never guess that it was gluten free. It had the perfect amount of cinnamon, was the perfect sweetness, and had this amazing crumb. It’s a good thing we don’t live in Oakland or Berkeley, because I would be eating this as often as possible, and I’m sure it’s not the healthiest breakfast in the world.

We’re on Mariposa’s mailing list and coincidentally we just got an email announcement from them today. They are celebrating Earth Day on April 22, 2009 and were also just certified as a “Bay Area Green Business.” Here’s their blurb on Earth Day.

This Wednesday, April 22, is Earth Day. To celebrate, we are offering 10% off your entire purchase to anyone who bikes, walks or brings their own shopping bags to Mariposa on Wednesday. So go green on Earth Day and drop by to save some green when you check out! (discount does not apply to other discounted items.)

Among other things, they also have food-allergy information on their products, and also donate 2% of their profits to community and world organizations.

We want to know: Any other awesome gluten free or gluten free friendly places in the San Francisco Bay Area you can recommend? Have you sampled any of the treats at Mariposa? Let us know in the comments!

Times we have visited: 2 (So we feel pretty good about our rating.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Around twice as expensive.

Mariposa Bakery
5427 Telegraph Ave, Unit D3
Oakland, California 94609
http://www.mariposabaking.com/

Dave February 5, 2009

Mariposa – A Gluten-Free Bakery in Oakland California

Regular readers of this blog will know that Sienna, our glamorous and amazing Head of Research went to visit her family in the San Francisco Bay Area recently. Luckily for us, she did some pre-trip research on gluten-free options in the Bay Area and came up with a bakery, Mariposa.

Mariposa bills itself as a gluten-free artisan bakery. They bake everything in a dedicated gluten-free facility. Among other things, they make biscotti, brownies, coffeecake, bagels, and pizza crusts. Their products are available nationwide in specialty food stores and can also be purchased online at their website. Lucky for me, Sienna brought home some of their products.

We sampled their chocolate-chip cookies, brownies, and a sesame seed bagel.

Other than a little bit of a fruity flavor and being a little sweet, the chocolate chip cookie was almost indistinguishable from a real, genuinely homemade chocolate chip cookie. The chewy gooey kind. Wow.

Have I ever mentioned here that I love the Trader Joe’s gluten-free brownie mix brownies? They are the best. I’m not really sure if there is a better brownie, honestly. So Mariposa had some stiff competition to stand up to. Luckily for them, both Sienna and I thought their brownie was about as good. They have a no-nonsense brownie. No nuts, no funny business, just chocolatey goodness. I was left wishing for the top crust to be more… what’s the word for how the top of a brownie is kind of hard and crackly and chewy? Like that. It wasn’t that, but the flavor was awesome.

I guess you can’t win them all. We both found the gluten-free bagel from Mariposa disappointing. I think part of the problem may be that we are serious bagel snobs. We turn our noses up at Noah’s Bagels, and when we moved to Portland four years ago, were unable to find a bagel we liked. The Mariposa bagel was very cakey, and resembled a bagel in shape and flavor only, and even the flavor left us wanting more.

Two out of three isn’t bad. The products we sampled were good enough that if we lived in the Bay Area, we would definitely frequent the Mariposa. Among other things, they also have food-allergy information on their products, and also donate 2% of their profits to community and world organizations.

Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Around twice as expensive.

Mariposa Bakery
5427 Telegraph Ave, Unit D3
Oakland, California 94609
http://www.mariposabaking.com/

Dave February 4, 2009

Valentines Day Treats from New Cascadia Traditional Bakery

This just in – New Cascadia Traditional Bakery is offering special Valentines Day treats. Items may be reserved by calling their retail kiosk (at 503.887.4392) by Wednesday the 11th, or can be picked up (on a first-come-first-served basis.)

They have cookies and cakes. For the cakes they have chocolate, vegan chocolate, and vanilla almond cakes in a “perfect for two” size for $5.50. (Later note: We got a chocolate and it was AWESOME.)

Yowsa!

Dave January 22, 2009

Gluten-Free Product Review – Nana’s Chocolate Crunch Cookie

Those of you who are aware of the origin of our current poll will know that it started with an awful cookie. The time has come to unmask the cookie in question, which was bought at our local New Seasons Market. Here’s our review:

We have a love-hate relationship with gluten free and vegan products. I have eaten many delicious vegan cakes and cookies. I have not eaten many good gluten-free and vegan cakes or cookies. This is a fact that I hope will change some day.

As for the Nana’s cookie, it tastes like something that was extruded and freeze-dried instead of something that was stirred, formed into a cookie, and baked. I do think these have a target audience. While doing a little research for this review I noticed that this is a popular cookie. If you like Twinkies and Ding-Dongs, or fakey packaged cookies, you might like this cookie. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with liking snack cakes or fakey packaged cookies. I’m just sayin’…

You might like this cookie and it's OK with me.

Overall rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Same price I guess.

Nana’s Chocolate Crunch Cookie

Dave January 13, 2009

Review: New Cascadia Traditional Bakery

Those of you who read our last review of the New Cascadia Traditional Bakery will know that we’re really excited about it. We think it’s a great place to get gluten-free food. We would like to make it clear that although the two reviews for today aren’t exactly gushing with praise, we’re still very much enthused about the bakery and think it’s one of a kind.

Today we’re going to sample their gluten-free cinnamon rolls and a sugar cookie. Let’s get to it.

You might not guess it because I’m usually so humble, but I consider myself a world-class expert on the subject of cinnamon rolls. I have even come up with a classification system for cinnamon rolls which you will no doubt find edifying for today’s review. There are three distinct cinnamon roll traditions in the world. These are:

The classical pastry dough cinnamon roll. This is the dense, usually small cinnamon roll which most often features raisins, and a thin glaze. Very often these are baked a light brown. These can also sometimes have pecans.
The huge bread-like pan cinnamon roll. These are the fluffy kind of cinnamon rolls you get at airports that are more of a cream color, rarely feature raisins, and have thick white frosting on them. These are more like what you get from the store in those tubes you smack against the counter to open.
The donut cinnamon roll. These are the flat cinnamon rolls that donut shops offer.

If you’re with me so far, you’re probably trying to figure out which is your favorite. I personally lean towards number 2, but only straight out of the oven. Number 3 is the best bet at a truck stop. Number 1 is more like what they made when I was a kid and can be good or bad, depending.

The cinnamon rolls at New Cascadia are type 1. They are dense and have a thin glaze. They don’t have raisins. They smell divine in the oven, but unfortunately they didn’t live up to our hopes and dreams. The flavor was right, but while we didn’t exactly get them fresh out of the oven and thus think they may be better in the morning, we felt like ours were too dense, and also wished that they had more cinnamon in them.

Next up are the gluten-free sugar cookies, which apparently are made with coconut flour. All I can say about these cookies is that they’re awesome! If you have celiac disease and have been dreaming about a real sugar cookie and wondering where you could get one, you should go there today!

That’s it for today’s review. We definitely have plans to keep going back to New Cascadia and will give you updates as they arrive.

Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Somewhere around twice as expensive.

New Cascadia Traditional
2120 NW Glisan St
Portland, Oregon 97210

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