Post by Silly Yak on Feb 9, 2011 8:49:32 GMT
report on visit to Australia
Posted by Charlotte, Oxford on 22/11/2004, 1:17 pm
62.254.128.7
"Executive summary"
Our 24 day trip to Australia recently was extremely enjoyable. Taking GF stores took some planning but was worth it. GF awareness was good but products generally poorer than the UK. Staying in self-catering apartments made it a lot easier. Food overall is cheaper but choice less good than the best in the UK.
Travel
BA provided OK gluten-free food for both legs of the journey London Singapore Sydney there and back. The best was the London leg which included some Lifestyle rolls and cake. After that rice cakes made a predictable appearance and the meals tended to be dairy and sugarfree, and rather bland (no salad dressing etc). It’s worth checking the labelling on each meal each time though: at one point I was given a “low cholesterol” hot meal by mistake (I only realised it was wrong when my GF son opened a different meal), which could not be changed (something from first class was rustled up instead). The best part of having a special meal is that you get it first (and finally get to use the washrooms when everyone else is eating).
Baggage
We had an extra case for gluten-free stuff with a doctor’s letter in case we exceeded out baggage limit. This was not a problem although on one of our internal flights Qantas told us the letter would not have prevented our being charge for excess baggage. (Fortunately their limit for internal flights is a generous 34kg a person - Australians beware if you attempt to fly Ryanair with more than a toothbrush!)
Customs
We had no problem going through the Red Channel at Sydney Airport with a caseload of gluten-free products armed with the doctor’s letter and, careful not to include any banned foods: meat dairy, fruit or nuts. The sniffer dog was very interested in my son’s backpack (the dog could smell the apples that my son usually takes for school lunch!)
Self-catering
We stayed in serviced apartments in Manly (Sydney), Inisfail & Port Douglas (Northern Queensland), Canberra and Melbourne, all with reasonably well equipped kitchens and large fridges. We managed to get our fresh bread supplies into a freezer in Queensland before they went off (6 day delay), helped by unusually cold weather in our first few days in Sydney.
We used the communal gas BBQ in one apartment block but, since it was ingrained with sauce, we cooked the GF food in foil.
I also took a toaster, chopping board, decent knife, wooden spoons, non-stick frying pan and cake tin and large sieve I always take - there never is one - which took careful packing and invariably ended up in someone’s hand luggage...) The picnic bag (with icepacks) was very useful day trips out Queensland, where it was predictably hot.
Gluten-free supplies
We were glad we took enough supplies for 3 weeks(12 loaves/rolls, 1kg pasta, 4 pizza bases, 4 pkts crackers, 1kg flour, 6 pkts biscuits) as the ones we found were not as good as our UK ones and there was far less choice.
The recommended fresh Country Life bread is widely available in supermarkets (frozen in tropical QLD) and was quite nice as bread but (unusually) less good toasted and not at all to my teenage son’s liking. Quite a good range of biscuits, though none as nice as the expensive but really excellent Byron Bay Cookies which we found in places like museum cafes and on airlines. We only saw crackers of the puffy kind. Purina, Nature’s Path and Whole Earth Cornflakes were available to varying degrees. Supermarkets had the best choice. GF food was in dedicated health food areas in some (Coles) but scattered in others (Supabarn). At times it was a bit of a faff looking. (To be honest if I had been travelling on my own I would probably have not bothered with bread or trying out new biscuits but a hulking teenage boy needs daily stoking with carbs so it was useful to have acceptable supplies to hand).
Food labelling
The labelling on food is good so that my son could buy an unknown icecream and any wheat would be clearly labelled - this type of labelling is coming into the EU in 2005. Wheat glucose is common (as here) but labelled; this not a problem for coeliacs unless they have additional wheat allergies. Gluten-free soya and chilli sauces were easy to find but were not as good as the ones I use here. Indian spices were hard to find.
Coeliac awareness
My impression is that rates of diagnosis and awareness are quite high (many people said things like “My brother/mother-law can’t eat gluten”) but people perhaps less strict about contamination eg in Canberra airport café there was a tray of lovely looking homemade apparently GF cakes right next to regular ones….(an additional prawn allergy I have did not help: in QLD everything either had soya sauce or seafood in it eg lunch on the charter boat to the Barrier Reef consisted almost exclusively of gluten, shellfish and soya sauce - interestingly little awareness of shellfish being avoided for reasons of allergy or religion).
Eating out
Awareness of gluten in restaurants was quite high but not always productive: "Yes we know about gluten: you can eat a plain steak and undressed salad.” We found nowhere where chips were cooked in a dedicated fryer.
The best food we had was in Melbourne. We stayed very near the famous Prahran market in South Yarra (which was as wonderful as I remembered it from 21 years ago) and good for some gluten-free snacks as well as great meat, fish and fruit and veg. Italian delis provided a good choice of gluten-free food esp antipasta dishes, because the food was homemade and they knew what was in it. Melbourne also had a good choice of organic fresh food, something very difficult to find elsewhere.
I particularly recommend (on the grounds of excellent food) Ecco, 97 Toorak Road, South Melbourne. Despite being an Italian restaurant with lots of homemade pasta and bread- oven pizzas (so not for the paranoid), there was good choice of dishes the staff were confident were GF including an excellent chocolate cake made with almonds. We ate there twice successfully and the food was truly exceptional (gluten and gluten-free), something that could not be said about any of the meals we had in Port Douglas or Canberra. I am sure there is also good (though more expensive) food available in Sydney but we weren’t there long enough to find it.
One thing we really liked were the excellent Juice Bars and fantastic ice cream bars, another part of the Italian inheritance.
Also on the plus side for coeliacs: most Australian bakeries have a rather odd unpleasant smell and the bread is generally poor so, unlike being in France or Italy there is no risk of being tempted...
Posted by Charlotte, Oxford on 22/11/2004, 1:17 pm
62.254.128.7
"Executive summary"
Our 24 day trip to Australia recently was extremely enjoyable. Taking GF stores took some planning but was worth it. GF awareness was good but products generally poorer than the UK. Staying in self-catering apartments made it a lot easier. Food overall is cheaper but choice less good than the best in the UK.
Travel
BA provided OK gluten-free food for both legs of the journey London Singapore Sydney there and back. The best was the London leg which included some Lifestyle rolls and cake. After that rice cakes made a predictable appearance and the meals tended to be dairy and sugarfree, and rather bland (no salad dressing etc). It’s worth checking the labelling on each meal each time though: at one point I was given a “low cholesterol” hot meal by mistake (I only realised it was wrong when my GF son opened a different meal), which could not be changed (something from first class was rustled up instead). The best part of having a special meal is that you get it first (and finally get to use the washrooms when everyone else is eating).
Baggage
We had an extra case for gluten-free stuff with a doctor’s letter in case we exceeded out baggage limit. This was not a problem although on one of our internal flights Qantas told us the letter would not have prevented our being charge for excess baggage. (Fortunately their limit for internal flights is a generous 34kg a person - Australians beware if you attempt to fly Ryanair with more than a toothbrush!)
Customs
We had no problem going through the Red Channel at Sydney Airport with a caseload of gluten-free products armed with the doctor’s letter and, careful not to include any banned foods: meat dairy, fruit or nuts. The sniffer dog was very interested in my son’s backpack (the dog could smell the apples that my son usually takes for school lunch!)
Self-catering
We stayed in serviced apartments in Manly (Sydney), Inisfail & Port Douglas (Northern Queensland), Canberra and Melbourne, all with reasonably well equipped kitchens and large fridges. We managed to get our fresh bread supplies into a freezer in Queensland before they went off (6 day delay), helped by unusually cold weather in our first few days in Sydney.
We used the communal gas BBQ in one apartment block but, since it was ingrained with sauce, we cooked the GF food in foil.
I also took a toaster, chopping board, decent knife, wooden spoons, non-stick frying pan and cake tin and large sieve I always take - there never is one - which took careful packing and invariably ended up in someone’s hand luggage...) The picnic bag (with icepacks) was very useful day trips out Queensland, where it was predictably hot.
Gluten-free supplies
We were glad we took enough supplies for 3 weeks(12 loaves/rolls, 1kg pasta, 4 pizza bases, 4 pkts crackers, 1kg flour, 6 pkts biscuits) as the ones we found were not as good as our UK ones and there was far less choice.
The recommended fresh Country Life bread is widely available in supermarkets (frozen in tropical QLD) and was quite nice as bread but (unusually) less good toasted and not at all to my teenage son’s liking. Quite a good range of biscuits, though none as nice as the expensive but really excellent Byron Bay Cookies which we found in places like museum cafes and on airlines. We only saw crackers of the puffy kind. Purina, Nature’s Path and Whole Earth Cornflakes were available to varying degrees. Supermarkets had the best choice. GF food was in dedicated health food areas in some (Coles) but scattered in others (Supabarn). At times it was a bit of a faff looking. (To be honest if I had been travelling on my own I would probably have not bothered with bread or trying out new biscuits but a hulking teenage boy needs daily stoking with carbs so it was useful to have acceptable supplies to hand).
Food labelling
The labelling on food is good so that my son could buy an unknown icecream and any wheat would be clearly labelled - this type of labelling is coming into the EU in 2005. Wheat glucose is common (as here) but labelled; this not a problem for coeliacs unless they have additional wheat allergies. Gluten-free soya and chilli sauces were easy to find but were not as good as the ones I use here. Indian spices were hard to find.
Coeliac awareness
My impression is that rates of diagnosis and awareness are quite high (many people said things like “My brother/mother-law can’t eat gluten”) but people perhaps less strict about contamination eg in Canberra airport café there was a tray of lovely looking homemade apparently GF cakes right next to regular ones….(an additional prawn allergy I have did not help: in QLD everything either had soya sauce or seafood in it eg lunch on the charter boat to the Barrier Reef consisted almost exclusively of gluten, shellfish and soya sauce - interestingly little awareness of shellfish being avoided for reasons of allergy or religion).
Eating out
Awareness of gluten in restaurants was quite high but not always productive: "Yes we know about gluten: you can eat a plain steak and undressed salad.” We found nowhere where chips were cooked in a dedicated fryer.
The best food we had was in Melbourne. We stayed very near the famous Prahran market in South Yarra (which was as wonderful as I remembered it from 21 years ago) and good for some gluten-free snacks as well as great meat, fish and fruit and veg. Italian delis provided a good choice of gluten-free food esp antipasta dishes, because the food was homemade and they knew what was in it. Melbourne also had a good choice of organic fresh food, something very difficult to find elsewhere.
I particularly recommend (on the grounds of excellent food) Ecco, 97 Toorak Road, South Melbourne. Despite being an Italian restaurant with lots of homemade pasta and bread- oven pizzas (so not for the paranoid), there was good choice of dishes the staff were confident were GF including an excellent chocolate cake made with almonds. We ate there twice successfully and the food was truly exceptional (gluten and gluten-free), something that could not be said about any of the meals we had in Port Douglas or Canberra. I am sure there is also good (though more expensive) food available in Sydney but we weren’t there long enough to find it.
One thing we really liked were the excellent Juice Bars and fantastic ice cream bars, another part of the Italian inheritance.
Also on the plus side for coeliacs: most Australian bakeries have a rather odd unpleasant smell and the bread is generally poor so, unlike being in France or Italy there is no risk of being tempted...