Dining Out: Multiple Locations

Grill’d 

Locations: Balaclava, Burwood, Camberwell, Carlton, Carnegie, Casey Central, Chadstone, Collingwood, Degraves Street, Doncaster, Eastland, Elsternwick, Fairfield, Flinders Lane, Fountain Gate, Frankston, Hawthorn, Highpoint, Knox, Little Bourke Street, Malvern, Melbourne Central, Moonee Ponds, Northland, Plenty Valley, Point Cook, QV, Richmond- Bridge Rd, Richmond- Swan Street, South Melbourne, Southern Cross, Southgate, Southland, St Kilda, Watergardens, Werribee, Windsor, Yarraville Ordered: Create your own burger with grilled chicken, pineapple, tomato, lettuce and cheese on a gluten free bun, chips

The beef patties contain their relish, which contains onion, but their grilled chicken does not have a marinade. The cranberry sauce is LowFodmap, as is many of their salad ingredients. The chips (regular potato) are gluten free and LowFODMAP, the seasoning used is just salt and rosemary.




La Porchetta
Ordered: Salmon with Italian salad (onions omitted)
Locations: Altona Meadows, Ballarat, Bayswater, Bentleigh East, Berwick, Broadmeadows, Carlton North, Caroline Springs, Colac, Cragieburn Central, Cranbourne, Doreen, Donvale, Frankston, Geelong, Glen Waverley, Greensborough, Hastings, Highpoint, Ivanhow, Lilydale, Melton, Mentone, Mill Park, Niddrie, North Melbourne, Pakenham, Phillip Island, Reservoir, Rosebud, Rowville, Sale, Seymour, Shepparton, South Yarra, Sunshine, Sydenham, Traralgon, Werribee

Gluten free pizza bases are available, however the tinned tomatoes they use contain onion powder (the tin was shown to me by a staff member). Some locations offer GF pasta, but all of their sauces contain either garlic, onion and/or cream. The safest bet is their salmon or steak with the Italian salad with onions omitted, the seasonal vegetables contain cauliflower and the chips have a flour coating. Unfortunately, the salad dressing also contains garlic powder, so this does make for a very bland meal, but if you do have to eat there, there is a safe option.


Gluten Free 4 U
Ordered: Vienna loaf, Ham and cheese scroll, Fructose friendly sausage rolls, Chocolate mud cake
Locations: Boronia, Frankston, Geelong, Kew, Moorabbin

This is a bakery with a cafe. The entire store is gluten free and fructose friendly options are clearly marked. They have a very wide selection of your typical and not so typical bakery items (one day I will have to try their fresh pasta). The vienna loaf is very close to a regular wheat version and is very large for the price, the sausage rolls are onion and garlic free and the ham and cheese scrolls are delicious. The chocolate mud cake loaf tastes exactly like the Coles/Woolworths mud cake. They also make gluten free and fructose friendly birthday cakes to order. They offer online orders of bread items. 







Spudbar
Ordered: Create your own, regular potato
Locations: Melbourne- Commercial Road, Fitzroy, Richmond, St Kilda, South Yarra, Hawthorn, South Melbourne, Doncaster, Werribee, Frankston, Ashburton, Southland, Eastland, Geelong

They use scissors to cut the potato and cut it after butter has been added, as they offer a garlic butter, explain that you cannot have garlic, and ask them to wash the scissors before cutting your potato.


Thr1ve
Ordered: Create your own bowl (Brown rice and red quinoa mix, grilled salmon, green beans, broccoli and nori)
Locations: Chadstone, Collins Place, Emporium

The create your own bowls offer many options, they also are very open to dietary considerations and will make extra effort to ensure no contamination occurs. GF penne, quinoa, amaranth noodles and brown rice, chicken, tuna, eggs and salmon and a variety of vegetables are available.

 
Sumo Salad
Ordered: Create your own salad (Spinach, carrot, capsicum, rice vermicelli, grilled chicken, parsley, lemon juice)
Locations: Geelong, Watergardens, Airport West, Melbourne Airport Terminal 2, Northland, Doncaster, Eastland, Knox, Fountain Gate, Monash Clayton, Southland, Melbourne Central, QV, Collins Place, Victoria Gardens, Shrine of Remembrance

The grilled chicken is cooked without a marinade and there is a large list of LowFODMAP items to add to your salad.




Subway
Ordered: Salad- Steak with lettuce, spinach, capsicum, tomato, pineapple and olives
Location: Just about everywhere

Both the steak and the grilled chicken are LowFODMAP and do not contain any onions or garlic. I have seen some outlets (Fountain Gate and Belgrave) advertise gluten free wraps available, but I haven't tried them. Hopefully those become a standard menu item.






Ikea
Locations: Springvale, Richmond 
Ordered: Chips and salad
Also available: Salmon, jelly
 
Yes, this was my lunch one day. In theory you can get a decent LowFodmap feed at Ikea, you're not going to expect a fabulous meal, but you can get a complete meal... as long as it's not the one day ever that they don't have their baked salmon. If, like me, you choose to go wander through the furniture maze on that exact say, then you get chips and salad.

So, the pros are that the chips aren't coated and you can build your own salad. The cons are that if they run out of something, you end up with this... while watching your kid who gets to eat meatballs AND go in the ball pit eat the meatballs and talk about going in the ball pit.