Kiku

Kiku

Tucked away in the freight house shoppes in Station Square is a wonderful little sushi restaurant called Kiku.  You have to keep your eyes peeled for it because it is very easy to pass up.  The outside of the restaurant is adorn with Japanese decor that spills inside the little Asian themed restaurant.  There are about twenty tables and a sushi bar inside.  The funny thing is I never see many people in this place.

As you are seated, you are welcomed with a hot towel and friendly service.  I skimmed over the menu and asked the server about the California rolls - were they made with real crab or imitation?  She sadly told me they were imitation crab which means not gluten free to me. I appericiate the honesty.

I asked her to check to see if the sushi platter for two and miso soup was gluten free.  She said the sushi was gluten free & they had gluten free soy sauce for me, but the soup was not.  I chose the salad with no dressing instead of the soup.

The salad was a mix of fresh greens with shredded carrots on top.  It wasn't bad of rabbit food.  The waitress kept offering me alternatives to the non gluten free dressing, but I am fine with dry salads.  The options were lemon, salt & peeper, or olive oil.

The sushi platter arrived.  It had two of each, except for the two rolls, which were full six piece rolls.  The waitress went over what each sushi was, but I didn't really catch all of them.  There were three different kinds of tuna, trout, whitefish, and salmon.

I was offered two different kinds of gluten free soy sauce.  One was Tamari & the other was Braggs Liquid Aminos.  I chose the Tamari.  For you non-gluten free diners, they make their own soy sauce in house, or so I'm told.

Each piece of sushi was fresh.  The rice was fluffy & not too sticky.  Really the rice was the best sushi rice I've ever had.  The fish was fresh.  The wasabi was fresh.  The selection was diverse.  They really did sushi well here.  It was hard to think I could eat half of the 28 pieces that was on this platter, but I did and I was happy I did.  I walked out of this experience satisfied and full.

I didn't feel that anything I ate here was cross contaminated and I felt that they addressed all my concerns regarding dietary restrictions.  I would highly reccommend this place to the gluten free sushi lover.



http://www.kikupittsburgh.net/
Station Square
225 W Station Square Dr  Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Outback Steakhouse

I've been to this Outback Steakhouse so many times.  My family likes to come here to celebrate birthdays.  I've had some good experiences; I've had some bad experiences.  When I come here, I stick to things on the menu that I know are gluten free like steak, baked potatoes, and salads.  I've found that although the chocolate brownie is made gluten free, I'm pretty sure the chocolate sauce or chocolate flakes they add to the brownie are not so gluten free.  The desserts at the Outback have gotten me sick before so beware.

Sometimes the service is decent, sometimes the service sucks.  We've waited way too long for meals here before.  They don't take reservations, but they do a thing called call ahead seating, which doesn't really help any.  

The staff that seats people was like the Keystone Cops.  There was no communication.  Our party was asked the same questions three times by three different people.  Each of them confused our party of five with the party of five that walked in ahead of us.  Then they seated us at a table too small for five people, so we asked to be moved.  We weren't given any silverware rolls and had to swipe them from a table by us.  And there wasn't very many tables in the restaurant at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday so catering to the tables that were there shouldn't have been so hard.

I ordered the 8 oz Victoria's filet, wood fired, medium rare, with a baked potato and a salad with no croutons and no dressing.  I am unsure if the dressings for the salads are really gluten free, and I didn't feel like risking it tonight.  The salad was a bed of iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers and shredded cheese.  It's nothing to write home about, but the lettuce and vegetables were fresh.

The filet and potato arrived.  The baked potato was cooked well.  The toppings were skimpy; they could have used a little more butter & cheese.  The filet arrived medium rare, but it looked like they replated my meal five times.  Juice spots splattered the plate.  The presentation was lacking.  The plate almost looked dirty. 

 I was here about a month ago & the medium rare was medium well, dry and rubbery.  At that time, I was too hungry to complain so I ate it anyway, even though it was not enjoyable.  This time, the filet was juicy, tender, and tasty, as long as you didn't think about how may times the steak was moved on the plate before it arrived at the table.

With these choices and today's preparation, I didn't get sick.  It's easy to tell what is making you sick when you order mostly the same things every time you go somewhere, with one or two variations.

Let me tell you about a few options I have gotten sick off of in the past.  The tuna appetizer has soy sauce on it - that made me sick.  The brownie & chocolate ice cream desserts both got me sick on 2 separate occasions.  That's why I think the chocolate sauce or chocolate flakes they top the brownie & ice cream with may have gluten in them.  Many types of chocolate have barley powder in them and that's usually the culprit for the gluten source.  


25 McMurray Rd  Pittsburgh, PA 15241
http://www.outback.com/