I decided it was time that the Raumati Kitchen Diaries went on tour, to try some other countries cuisine in their own country and then again some other countries cuisine in yet a different country altogether. Welcome to the first Installment of RKD on Tour – New York & DC

It’s only been 2½ years since I was last in New York, but for The Wife and The Daughter, this is a first experience of the city that never sleeps. Last time I was in DC was 35 years ago, when Bush Sr. was president, so I’m assuming that has changed a lot!

We are very lucky in New Zealand to have two airlines offering direct services to NYC from Auckland, so unless you suffer from claustrophobia, aviophobia, motion sickness, agoraphobia or just can’t stand sitting for long periods of time or maybe abhor airline food, then NYC is only 16hr’s away from NZ, if you say it fast and forget that it’s actually almost 18hrs on the way back (something to do with science) then that is close!

Anyway back to the trip, We are here to look at sites, watch shows and sport, and most importantly eat food. I’m interested in how food has changed particularly on the allergy front. I have visited The Sates about 18 times since 1988 and the first time that I came here after becoming gluten free (in 2010), when I asked anyone if they had a GF menu, they just looked at me as if I was from Tatooine. I returned home a week later looking like I had just been to a health farm where all they served was fresh fruit and nuts (at the time I was in Orlando where it seemed anything that wasn’t a sandwich or burger was breaded just in case). However three years later I was sitting in a restaurant on the Strip in Las Vegas eating a burger with a gluten free bun that I still dream about today.

Time moves pretty fast there, now gluten free has become a big industry, my data analyst (unnamed search engine) tells me that it was worth $7.7b in the U.S. last year, so I was keen to test it out for myself. All the time remembering that The Wife and The Daughter are not gluten challenged, so they want to eat normally and not be pigeonholed, eating something that was modified for me because we were put at the GF naughty table.

I am going to try many different types with of cuisines from fast food to fine dining and share my findings, I welcome any feedback and advice from people in the know, on where I went wrong or if I’ve been lured into a false sense of security by scurrilous charlatans pretending to peddle GF.

As each review for RKD on Tour – New York & DC is posted you can find it on the dedicated RKD on Tour section of the website.

#RaumatiKitchenDiaries #RKDonTourNYC #RKDonTour #glutenfreenyc #glutenfreedining #glutenfreeDC