Let me just say right off the bat… I was skeptical. A gluten free restaurant with baked goods and regular food? Could this possibly be any good? As someone who doesn’t shun gluten at all and doesn’t have food allergies, I wasn’t sure how this whole experience would go down. But since I got invited to come in and check it out, I was willing to take the risk. And I have to say… I was pleasantly surprised.

[inside the cafe]

2Good2Be is a cute little cafe inside of one of the strip malls in Encinitas, CA. It’s a fast casual restaurant with lots of beverage options (coffees, teas), baked goods (cupcakes, brownies, cakes) as well as regular food – all gluten-free, corn free, corn syrup free and soy free.

[case of gluten free cupcakes]

The cupcakes that greet you when you walk in also very tempting looking – all pretty and decorated!

Jake and I ordered a few things from the menu to get an overall feel for their food and then, of course, saved room for cupcakes at the end.

[bottled sodas]

My initial beverage choice was rejected by Jake and he went up and got us some bottled sodas. I told him to surprise me and he got me this Cock ‘n Bull ginger beer which wasn’t too bad. I don’t normally drink full sugar sodas anymore but this one was decent with a good ginger flavor. Surprising to me, I actually liked the Cheerwine a little bit more. I thought it would be full on in-your-face-tastes-like-cough-syrup flavored cherry.. but it actually kind of reminded me of Dr. Pepper.

[cheese pizza]

We started off by sharing a cheese pizza. I really liked the HUGE dollops of ricotta on top. Ricotta makes me really happy, so this put a smile on my face.

This also had tomato sauce, mozzarella and just a touch of basil. I would have enjoyed a wee more bit of basil, but it was fine. The crust was a gluten free crust that was quite thin (like NY style thin) and quite a bit chewy. The outer edges of the pizza were kind of burnt which I did not like since it made the other edge too hard to eat. But overall the crust wasn’t bad – you could tell this wasn’t a normal crust, but it didn’t deter too much from the pizza (except for the burnt edges). Overall good flavor and good distribution of cheese.

[macaroni and cheese]

Our other shared item was the macaroni and cheese, something we’ve really taken a liking to order whenever we see it on a menu. Continue reading “gluten free dining at 2Good2B bakery cafe / encinitas – san diego, ca”