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| Mine! All Mine! Prepared gluten-free by Fuji's hibachi chef, all the food on this grill belonged to me! |
A few days ago, my husband’s family celebrated my
father-in-law’s 85th birthday (and our nephew’s 33rd
birthday) with a dinner gathering at Fuji
Japanese Seafood & Steakhouse (located at 2909 S Campbell Ave. in Springfield, MO), a restaurant
that features hibachi-style tableside grilling.
I wasn’t sure what might be in store for me, as far as
gluten-free food was concerned, but Japanese restaurants generally have at
least a few sushi offerings that I can eat. Gluten-free soy sauce can sometimes
be a problem, however, so I threw my little GF soy sauce packets into my purse
before we left.
Well, I needn’t have worried! The waitress and the hibachi
chef at the restaurant were well informed about gluten issues. She asked me if
I had celiac disease or if I were on a gluten-free weight loss diet. They are
especially careful, if the customer has actual gluten intolerances. Many of
their customers, she said, have gluten issues.
Now, if you have ever eaten at a Japanese steakhouse where
the food is prepared at the table, you know that watching the chef is a large
part of the treat. Egg tricks, onion volcanoes, and athletic knife-handling
keep you entertained as you wait for your freshly-cooked food.
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| The huge serving plate was completely full! |
In order to keep my food gluten-free, the chef prepared my
food first on the clean hibachi—and, of course, he used gluten-free soy sauce
in the process. My poor tablemates had to wait a little longer for their food,
but they were very patient. As I ate my
fresh, hot stir-fry alone--no longer the second-class citizen I am accustomed
to being, waiting for my fellow diners to finish their complimentary breads or gluten-containing
appetizers--I think they rather envied me
for a change!
Fuji does have a nice sushi menu, if you want to eat it as
an appetizer or opt out of the stir-fry, but gluten avoiders can have just
about anything on the menu prepared without gluten. The food was delicious,
plentiful, and relatively inexpensive for the amount of food we received. I
think most of us took at least half of our food home with us. (For me, it was enough food for dinner that evening and for lunch the next two days--and I can really put it away!)
Speaking of hibachi grills, the chain restaurant HuHot (located at the north end of the
Battlefield Mall in Springfield) is also very careful to prepare food for those
who can’t have gluten. They have a handout describing their foods and listing the
various allergens. When you have collected the fresh ingredients and approved
sauces from the food bars, you take them to the grill. They carefully clean the grill for you and
cordon off a special area in which to cook your food.
While there is always some danger of cross-contamination in
a food-bar setting—people might dip ladles in the wrong sauce or drop
gluten-containing food into a pan of food that would otherwise be gluten-free--I
have taken the risk several times and have never had a problem.
If Japanese food prepared fresh on a hibachi is one of your
favorites, you don’t have to do without, just because you must eat gluten-free.
And you might just get to eat first!
