Crepes Archives - Gluten Free Portland

Dave March 16, 2011

Gluten Free Crepes on Alberta – Suzette Creperie

We’ve been to a couple of creperies in Portland, both in the food cart form, and also in the more traditional restaurant form. Suzette Creperie is almost a cross between the two. In back is an airstream trailer where you give your order and also where the crepes are prepared. The dining room is in the front, and is warm and homey with a nice atmosphere.

To get to the airstream, you start on Alberta and walk down this sort of alleyway to order. Suzette got points for volunteering up front that they share cooking surfaces between the gluten-free and the regular. That was very cool. But yes, sadly, the crepes here are not for the very sensitive – like basically all the other crepe places we’ve reviewed here. I’m sensitive enough that I “get glutened” now and then, but I had no trouble with the food at Suzette. At the same time, we can’t recommend Suzette to the very sensitive.

On the good news side, Suzette shows films on Friday nights. They’ve been doing Hitchcock movies lately. We caught North by Northwest the first time we went, and Vertigo on our second visit. During both visits, everyone was extremely friendly and the staff was attentive. Our food came out in a reasonable amount of time and was the right temperature. We liked the Suzette crepes a little better than crepes at the other places we’ve reviewed for two reasons. A) They have adventurous flavors, and B) They’re a little thinner and more tender.

Sorry for the bad photo. It was kind of dark in there. Suzette makes 3 kinds of crepes. First there is the standard buckwheat crepe, which has gluten. Second, there is the vegan crepe (which also contains gluten). Third, there is the gluten-free crepe, which we need to find out the vegan status on. The gluten-free crepe costs a buck more. Did we mention that Suzette has plenty of vegan options? It would be pretty easy to get a vegan meal there.

Suzette has some pre-made crepe flavor combinations, but also gives you the ability to create your own crepe by choosing between a number of ingredients. On the savory side, we tried the Smoked Salmon (which has salmon, goat cheese, spinach, and capers) and also created our own with Gruyere, marsala soaked figs, and prosciutto on one night and goat cheese, marsala soaked figs, and prosciutto on the other night. I preferred the goat cheese over the Gruyere, but then I’m a sucker for goat cheese.

As with other crepe places, it may be a good idea to share your crepes. If you get a savory crepe AND a dessert crepe, it’s going to be too much for one person to eat, really. We got our own savory crepes and then split the dessert crepes. For dessert, we tried the chocolate peanut butter crepe on night one, and the Normandie on the second night. The Normandie has lemon butter, topped with cider-poached pears, creme fraiche ice cream, and cider caramel sauce. We both agreed that the Normandie was significantly better than the chocolate peanut butter crepe, which we found to be way too peanut-buttery and not enough chocolaty.

We also got decaf coffee with our dessert crepes and were very happy with the coffee at Suzette. So yeah, good coffee, good crepes, and a laid back, friendly atmosphere. The thing we liked best about the Suzette was that we felt transported. That is to say that it gave us the feeling as if we were traveling somewhere, and had found a fun place to eat. The combination of the atmosphere, the adventurous crepe flavors, and the friendly people (not just the staff, but we had nice interactions with patrons) made for a great experience on both nights we visited. We’ll probably be back for more.

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Gluten-Free friendly but Ask Questions! Shared cooking surfaces.
Times we have visited: 2 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Add $1 for the gluten free.

Suzette Creperie
www.suzettepdx.com
2921 NE Alberta St., Portland OR 97211 / 503.473.8657

Dave June 29, 2010

News Bites

Writes reader Maggie M:

I’m a new GF eater & finding your website super helpful. I chatted with the girl who runs this place: Crepes a la Carte about possibly offering a GF crepe at her stand. She asked me a lot of questions about why I’m GF and what kind of contamination is safe and etc. She was interested in doing GF and getting it right. Within 2 weeks she had a GF crepe available. As far as the contamination goes, she uses two teflon burners, and washes one off with water & a washcloth when making the GF crepe. Appears all other ‘equipment & utensils’ are kept separate for the GF crepe. Toppings involve jams & fruits, so are GF. I personally will not have a reaction to a speck of wheat, and I know some folks do so of course, buyer beware. Certainly though-she goes to lengths to keep things safe.

Hope you find this info useful & that others can enjoy her tasty crepes!! I loved my first one so much-I ordered a second. She is at Orenco Station Farmer’s market on Sunday AMs and Tanasbourne Market on Wednesday nights.

PS…also at the Orenco market & trying to pass off his tapenade as ‘gluten free’ when the ingredient list states ‘bread crumbs’ about 1/2 way down would be The Hummus Stop. He puts a label on stating “Gluten Free”. I questioned the owner who said ‘well-it’s just a little bit’ and then when I pressed him, he basically told me to go away. You win some, you lose some I guess!

Thanks to Maggie for the info! This place sounds a lot “safer” to eat than the other crepe places we’ve reviewed – Perierra and Chez Machin. We’ve also just heard that Hot Lips Pizza has gluten-free pizza dough available (thanks Noah).

Sorry for the lack of postings lately. Besides Summer arriving (finally!), I’ve been working on losing weight recently and it’s been taking up a lot of my time and energy.

Dave June 3, 2010

Restaurant Review: Chez Machin

We discovered Chez Machine Creperie thanks to a great Groupon discount (you could get a $25 coupon for $11). Sienna checked out the restaurant online and found that they offer gluten-free crepes, so it was a done deal. The restaurant is a tiny place a couple of blocks from Powell’s on Hawthorne. It’s really so small that a person could drive right past it. I have to report up front that they cook the gluten-free crepes on the same surface as the normal ones, so if you’re extremely sensitive you should definitely pass on the crepes. On the plus side, our waitress was very friendly and was happy to discuss what was gluten-free and what was not.

Inside, Chez Machin is made up like a cross between a cafe and an Italian restaurant. I think that they were going for French, but the place felt more Italian to me. Maybe it was the checked table cloths. When we went, the place was packed full of happy people and had something of a laid back cafe atmosphere. The crepes here are the more thick kind, rather than the more thin kind that some will be used to. The last time I talked about crepes on this blog, I mentioned that I’m not really a crepe-loving kind of person. To me, especially when they are thick, crepes end up seeming a lot like a “wrap.” Sometimes you might want something like flat bread around your food, and sometimes it’s just a distraction.

For an appetizer, at the recommendation of our waitress, we opted to have the French Onion Soup, which can be made gluten-free. We both thought it was very good. Make sure you order it gluten-free, because otherwise it comes with croutons in the soup.

Like most crepe places, Chez Machin has sweet crepes and savory crepes. On the savory side, they have vegetable crepes, meat crepes, and seafood crepes. I got La Percheronne, which is Black Forest ham, brie, avocado, mushrooms, and crème fraîche. Sienna got L’Allemande, which is bacon, pan sauteed potatoes, caramelized onions, scallions, Ementaller Swiss cheese and crème fraîche. (On a side note, their béchamel sauce is not gluten-free. They start it with a rue.) All the ingredients were fresh and the crepes were hot when they came to the table, but neither of us was blown away by our dishes. Once again, that might be in part because we’re just not that into savory crepes. I think the next time we go there, I might try one of their entrees instead of a savory crepe.

On to the sweet crepes. I got La Mont Blanc, which has local berries, chocolate, and whipped cream. Sienna tried La Compote, which is made with cooked apples and cinnamon with caramel sauce. As with the savory crepes, all the ingredients were good. They got my order a little wrong, but fixed it very promptly. We both really enjoyed our dessert crepes. I really think that crepes are more suited for desserts. Sienna and I had a short conversation about the nature of crepes and why it would be that they seem to work better with sweets. Sienna’s theory is that sweets are more flavorful and so they don’t get as dulled by the crepe. With savory crepes it does seem that the flavors can get lost.

Our newest adventure with crepes ended well, and we both agreed that our experience at Chez Machin was favorable enough that we would be interested in going back sometime soon. Some notes:

Go to Chez Machin on a night where you want to slow down and relax. We thought that the service was a little slow. But if you’re not in a rush, you can just sit back and enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and do some people watching.
Plan to split your crepes. We ended up with leftovers, and could very easily have split one savory and one sweet crepe between the two of us.
The coffee and tea that we had were both very good.

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Unsafe Depending on Your Level of Sensitivity.
Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: $1 more for gluten-free crepe.

Chez Machin Creperie
www.chezmachincreperie.com
3553 SE Hawthorne Blvd / 503-736-9381

We want to know: Do you know of any other crepe places in town that do gluten-free crepes? What is up with the person who writes the descriptions for everything on Groupon? Are they crazy or what? Do you have any opinion about sweet -vs- savory crepes? Let us know!

Dave March 24, 2010

Food Carts: Grilled Cheese Grill and Perierra Creperie

Before I get too far into either of these reviews, it must be said that although both offer “gluten-free” items, neither dedicates a grill to them. So beware if you are celiac or really seriously gluten sensitive. You’d best steer clear. I debated whether or not to review either of them due to this fact, but I do know that there are people who follow our blog who don’t have to be quite so careful. Also, it’s good to know either way. So there you go.

The Grilled Cheese Grill on NE Alberta

You know how sometimes you won’t really have an appetite for something until a series of events makes you think about them? For instance, one day your significant other might make him or herself a grilled cheese sandwich and then the next, one of your co-workers will eat one and talk about how wonderful it is. That happened to Sienna recently so we visited the Grilled Cheese Grill on NE Alberta so that she could have a grilled cheese sandwich.

The Grilled Cheese Grill offers gluten-free bread. They use the rice bread that you can get at Trader Joe’s. The menu is interesting. They serve everything from a super-simple grilled cheese sandwich, to a four-cheese sandwich, to something resembling a meatball sandwich, to the “Cheesus Burger.” The Cheesus is a hamburger made of two grilled cheese sandwiches with a meat patty in between. If it isn’t already, this sandwich should be on the This is Why You’re Fat website. Besides the standard sandwiches on the menu, a person can also choose to build their own from of a list of ingredients. Their Creamy Tomato soup is not gluten-free, which sucks.

Sienna got the straight-up normal grilled cheese sandwich and I got the Moondog. This is Provolone, Hard Salami, Pepperoni, and Chopped Olive & Pepper Tapenade on bread. In my case it was on the Trader Joe’s rice bread, of course.

We both enjoyed our sandwiches. The problem I have with the Grilled Cheese Grill is that it is so easy to make a grilled cheese sandwich yourself. I could see going to this place if you’re wandering around on Alberta with some friends and you decide that it would be fun to get some grilled cheese sandwiches together. They do have some adventurous grilled cheese sandwiches which might make it worth a trip, but otherwise you might as well grab some cheese out of the fridge, grab some of your gluten-free bread, and make your own. You’ll get the added bonus of being able to have some gluten-free tomato soup with your sandwich.

Final verdict: We thought that they were good, and would be curious to try some other sandwiches. We would like them better if they had a dedicated gluten-free grill.

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: No Dedicated Grill – Unsafe Depending on Your Level of Sensitivity.
Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Add $0.75 for GF bread.

The Grilled Cheese Grill
http://www.grilledcheesegrill.com/
1027 NE Alberta Ave / 503.206.8959

Perierra Creperie on SE Hawthorne

Next up is Perierra Creperie. Crepes are one of those things where it seems like there’s a small population of people who love them, and then the rest of the world doesn’t really care much. I belong in the former group, although I do love dessert crepes, I don’t really love them enough to go out of my way to get one. Perierra is on SE Hawthorne next to a couple of other food carts.

I think it’s pretty standard to sort crepes into two groups: the sweet and the savory. Here are some examples of their crepes. On the sweet side, Perierra has lemon & sugar; strawberry, cream cheese and honey; walnut, honey, cardamom, and coriander; and a S’More Crepe. On the savoy side, they have Gorgonzola, pear, walnut, and honey; ham and Gruyere; fig, prosciutto, Chevre, and honey; and a crepe with smoked salmon, cream cheese, arugula and lemon. They also have some very adventurous shakes. For example, they have a avocado and sea salt shake and the very interesting sounding basil and coconut milk shake.

Despite anything they may say about keeping their gluten-free crepes separate, I watched as our crepe chef poured the gluten-free batter onto a grill she had just used to make a standard crepe, so beware.

We thought the crepes were good, but both of ours were crunchy and thick, so it was almost like eating something in an ice cream cone. This may be the style of the place, but both of us were used to crepes being thin and soft. I checked out what other people were saying about them on the Internet, and it seems like a lot of people have the same experience. I should mention that it happens that the gluten-free crepes are vegan and so it’s possible to get vegan crepes here.

As with the Grilled Cheese Grill, we both felt that their offerings were good, but not amazing. Maybe another go with some different choices would change our minds. If you love crepes and don’t mind the shared equipment, then I don’t think you can go wrong with the Perierra.

Perierra Creperie
Perierra Creperie Facebook Page
SE 12th & Hawthorne

We want to know: Should we continue to include restaurants that aren’t exactly gluten-free safe? Have you eaten at either one? What did you think? Let us know!

The Grilled Cheese Grill on NE Alberta

Perierra Creperie on SE Hawthorne

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