Tag: lunch

Encinitas, San Diego County, Mary

gluten free dining at 2Good2B bakery cafe / encinitas – san diego, ca

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”

Travel, Las Vegas, Mary

great bao – las vegas, nv

For our final meal in Vegas, I wanted to go somewhere a little off the beaten path – at least, off of the beaten Strip path. After we checked out of the hotel and got everything together, we headed over to this little strip mall just a couple of miles away from the Las Vegas Strip.

To a beauty salon.

[Great Bao Cafe is inside – there’s food beyond these doors, promise!]

My cohorts were pretty skeptical about this one. Food inside of a beauty salon? Is that even healthy?

The fact that it’s in a beauty salon just intrigued me more. I love weird, quirky places and this totally fit the bill! I ignored their weird looks and trusted my gut that this place would be awesome. Luckily my friends trust me as well and I heard no protests.

[Great Bao Cafe]

The owner/chef has got his little corner in the beauty salon, complete with tiled roof and little string of lanterns. I was already in love with this place.

The owner is originally from Los Angeles and made his way out east to Vegas (I think because his wife is from Vegas – but don’t quote me on that). He originally had a food truck, but set up shop here after seeing a place for rent in Craigslist. I swear, you can find just about anything on Craiglist! Used TV’s, free chairs, moving boxes, boyfriends, and apparently, places to rent so you can make and sell your little steamed bun sandwiches.

[Great Bao Menu]

The menu here is pretty simple. All of the sandwiches are made with bao which uses similar ingredients to bread, but the bao is steamed, giving it a soft, chewy consistency. There are five different fillings for the Bao (one of them, the pulled pork, isn’t up on the menu). There are smoothies and salads plus cold and hot drinks. The best deal – the deal that all of us got – was three bao + a drink for $10. For an extra fee, you can upgrade to a smoothie.

All of us got iced tea as our drink of choice. The really nice thing about that was we could have it sweetened how we wanted it. Laura got it unsweetened, I got it slightly sweet, and Jake and Chris both got it sweet.

There was a bit of wait for our sandwiches – but that was totally understandable, seeing as this was a one man job that day. We waited outside for our food since it was about the only place where all four of us could sit together. There are two very small two seater tables inside and two tables outside.

[Bao sandwiches on a cutting board]

Everyone got a little cutting board with their bao sandwiches on it. I choose the duck, chicken and pork belly sandwiches.

Continue reading “great bao – las vegas, nv”