Yesterday was my birthday (31! that’s right!) and I was craving some chinese but Husband had other plans and took me to Eat n Park on the Waterfront. I don’t have any complaints about Eat n Park but to me it’s just a run of the mill restaurant with American food and while I always find something satisfactory, I’d never say I was wowed by the cuisine. I guess I think of it more as the malt shop the teens run to after games and shows rather than my type of place.
          However, Husband heard through the grapevine that Eat n Park has joined the gluten free nation and had some offerings, namely the gluten free hamburger bun. And, being the awesome guy that he is always on the lookout for GF stuff (he recently called up a closed store and cajoled them into opening up to get me bags of flour, lol), he rightly chose Eat n Park.
        So I was impressed last night with dinner. Not the offerings particularly, but the menu and organization, which counts for a lot. I’ve tended to avoid eating out, particularly with friends because unless I’ve downloaded the menu beforehand, it takes me way too long to read ingredients and suss out what’s ok and I just shrug and ask for the salad bar.
          Eat n Park has made this simple for every diet. The back of their menu has a complete list of what’s low-cal, sugar-free, senior-portioned, celiac-friendly and anything else you can think of in easy to read sections. This even includes calorie counts for many items. Now, in the interest of time I ended up with the salad bar anyway, which I was glad to see is stocked with local produce when available. Way to go Eat n Park.
         I was curious about calories in a particular offering and hit up the website because the printed menu doesn’t give this for all items. The online menu is much like the printed version with separate, easy access tabs but it features a nifty little calorie/nutritional counter that allows you to substitute allergen-free foods, etc in the recipe and recalculate nutrition. Very cool, try it out here.
         My only suggestions to Eat n Park would be to somehow integrate this into the restaurant so you can tally up at the table itself. Also, why no GF Smiley cookies yet? I would think when doing GF one would automatically convert their signature piece as an offering. Well, here’s hoping cos I was surely hankering for one after passing boxes upon boxes in the front hallway. One other tiny whine- I couldn’t find the hamburger with the gluten free bun on the menu, even in the celiac section so I was a little betrayed by that. Perhaps it was only offered in certain locations or maybe I should just put my glasses on. Either way, good birthday dinner. Thanks E N P!