Damn you Chinese Takeaway: the trial of gluten free takeaway food

I’ve been gluten free for the past five years now as a consequence of my body breaking down one Wednesday morning and deciding that gluten was no longer going to be tolerated. Why? I will never know but you’ve got to just get on with these things…right?

One thing that came upon me when I became intolerant to gluten was the difficulty I would have in finding decent Chinese food. In fact, except for my time in the United States (God bless America), I was unable to find authentic Chinese gluten free food which is weird. I mean, I am sure people from China have a similar variation of gluten tolerance to us in the west. Basically, I came to the conclusion that the British are just incredibly bad at catering for us. Then in late 2016, a miracle happened. There was a new Chinese takeaway opening up and it had GLUTEN FREE OPTIONS. Naturally, I was extremely excited and I called up that same day to try and place an order. And okay, they didn’t have much in the way of noodle dishes but they did have tasty beef with chilli and quite frankly that was something to be excited about. Since then, I had eaten there three times with little variation on what I ordered. It was tasty. I didn’t finish the night in agony and it left me very satisfied. Victory me right? Well…

I tried to make an order this evening. My Mum had told us on Tuesday that she fancied a Chinese so naturally I was very excited. I finish work early, grab the phone and call up to place an order……and I’m told that the tasty beef in chilli is now NOT gluten free. Err, what the hell? So obviously I panicked. My first thought was that they had fed me BS on the previous occasions and that the food I was eating actually had gluten in it. I had to call back and clarify but I went along the lines that IF it had gluten in it, then I would have been ill…right? The lady that runs the phones answered once again and we discussed what happened and she told me that they had changed their supplier and that the new sauce they are using has wheat flour in it. I’m sceptical to be honest but I have to go along the lines that IF there had been gluten in it, I’d have probably been severely ill. I was devastated more with the fact though that I no longer was able to enjoy the meal that I had become so satisfied with. The replacement, beef cooked with pepper in a black bean sauce really didn’t the spot. Oh, and guess what. Tonight, I also have stomach cramps so I’m feeling very bitter. 

At least tomorrow is Friday right?