Allergy Eating in Sydney

Wonderful surprise discoveries while travelling with allergies! Find #2 - Green and Pleasant Tearooms , Bourton-on-the-Water, Cheltenham, UK   I originally posted about this last May, while I was on holiday in the UK, in a blog entitled, 'How living with food allergies can be a most wonderful thing...' and I really meant that title. For all the difficulties that food or any other allergies can cause, the experience teaches you a great deal and it's impossible not to develop an appreciation for so many things, and for all the people who have actively tried to open up different foods for people and allow them to experience something that so many others never have to think twice about. I'm absolutely not saying that people without allergies necessarily take food for granted, but when you're forced to watch out for everything, it gives you a unique opportunity to experience and really savour firsts that others will have long forgotten... and those moments ...

Establishment: New Shanghai, Sydney CBD, Ashfield, Chatswood Cuisine: modern Shanghai-style cuisine Allergy information: a number of dishes are entirely dairy, egg, seafood and nut free Suggestions: pan fried pork buns, pork and chive dumplings, spinach with garlic – all those together make for a pretty great meal (and for a pretty decent price)! When you’re allergic to seafood and fish sauce, eating at a lot of Asian places can often be quite difficult. Growing up, it was always safest for me to have a plain bowl of rice because there was either fish sauce or oyster sauce in just about everything and they could never guarantee my dish would be safely free of any seafood. Thankfully, growing up Filo, I like my rice so with the promise of a trip to Maccas once the family or the friends were done with Yum Cha, I would happily dip through my bowl, improve on my chopstick skills and enjoy the company. What this meant though, was that for the majority of my life, I was one of ...

Establishment: Gourmet Cake Express Cuisine: Baked goods Allergy information: They have a wide range of gluten free cakes as well as a selection for special diets such as egg free, dairy free and vegan. Suggestions: The Egg Free Dairy Free Chocolate Cake is moist, jammy and decadent. They have also confirmed it is nut free so that's one for the nut allergies! Straight off the bat, I will not hesitate to say I've been going to these guys for cake since 2012 and once again, I have an excellent workmate to thank for their discovery. In the lead up to one of our team meetings, my workmate, Jaz, sent me an email letting me know that they were looking to get some cake in for my and another teammate's upcoming birthdays (incidentally, my 30th!) and asked me to check out a link to a place called Gourmet Cake Express that had a 'Special Diets' section. If I recall correctly (2012 was a while back now), I clicked the link in disbelief and had a minor freak out befor...

Vale! To those allergy-friendly places that are no longer with us. Post #1 -  WellCo Cafe, Glebe A tribute to the place that served me my first allergy-safe brownie, along with one of the tastiest vegan green salads I've ever had and that became one of my favourite haunts till it had to go - Well Co cafe on Glebe Point Road 🙌 This place was a gem. Sure, it wasn't perfect or polished or slick. The tables and chairs were worn and the interior could be dark and pokey but what did it matter when you and your friends were huddled around a table having a good gab or listening to the jazz bands that used to play by the stairs? Simple, it just didn't. Friends and I could sit there, chatting and nursing our sweet treats and tea for hours. If we ended up on the balcony upstairs, our sojourn was accompanied by a good breeze (if there was one) along with the buzz of traffic down on Glebe Point Road. It was a place you could really sit back and relax in. Of course, t...

Establishment: Gathered Kitchen, Glebe Cuisine: plant based, vegan, cafe Allergy information: all dishes are dairy and egg free, some dishes are also nut free or gluten free Suggestions: the pancake stack and the pain au chocolat – delicieux! Living with allergies, suggestions from family and friends have become a great way to discover new foods or places to eat out, especially in the last decade or so. Don’t get me wrong, Google is a pretty handy way to find articles and sites that guide you to some amazingly allergy friendly finds, but when you have people on your side, looking out for you and thinking about you when they see something delicious that won’t have you running for your epipen or to the hospital, that’s a pretty wonderful thing. In this case, I have to thank my workmate, Morgaine, for suggesting I check out this relatively new place in Glebe. Being vego, she had started frequenting a vegan cafe called Gathered Kitchen and one day at work, she made a passing sugges...

Photo clearly not taken at this time of year in Sydney. Phew!            Hello! So my name's Jel and after over 36-odd years of managing food allergies whilst living in Sydney and after years of trying, testing, trawling through sites, blogs, videos and all else on the internet, it’s pretty safe to say that I’m not alone in my neverending quest to find safe things to eat. There are so many of us out there who have spent our lives navigating ways to eat out with as little complication as possible and for many of us, that meant a lot of awkward conversations and explanations with people and wait staff about what you could and couldn't eat and then often having to deal with very visible exasperation and confusion. Of course, some were kind and did try, but ultimately, after enough years of embarrassment and anxiety, it became much simpler to just stop trying which then meant restrictions on the types of places you could go with friends and family...

My answer to the food allergies - ha! My Christmas baking supplies. My Allergy Profile Food allergies: Dairy Egg Seafood Most nuts  - thankfully, early exposure to peanuts, almonds and cashews helped me to escape a very common food allergy but the rest are a no go zone Rockmelon* Kiwi* Sausage - this is on here because sausage has sent me to the hospital however lately I have been closely checking ingredients and finding some that have turned out to be safe, which is amazing! Alcohol* All cause anaphylaxis and hives except the ones marked which have caused itching, swelling and vomiting. Other allergies: Animal fur (particularly cats, dogs and horses) Sensitivities: Dust mites Heat, both humid and dry UV Conditions: Eczema/atopic dermatitis Perioral dermatitis Asthma (mild) Ulcerative Colitis (pancolitis/mild) Current medications: Zyrtec (1 daily or more as needed) Imuran (75mg daily) - started having to take this after an unhappy bou...