May 2014: We didn’t eat at a ton of places in Miami because we were only there for four days, but maybe these reviews will help somebody searching for places to eat gluten-free in the future, so here they are before I forget!

We rented out a flat while we were there and headed to Whole Foods for a great selection of gluten-free breakfast foods. They had frozen GF donuts. I was. in. heaven. Aside from breakfast, we’d usually bring a snack to the beach, so we only had to eat out for dinner.

Pizza Rustica

This was the first pizza I had since beginning the gluten-free diet two weeks before our trip to Puerto Rico and the US. It was freaking delicious, but the gluten free dough is placed on the same wooden paddles as all the other pizzas made with normal flour. I ate half my pizza and stopped because I wasn’t sure how it would affect me.

The next day I felt a little glutened… low-grade fever, headache, tired, same ol’ same ol’ stomach problems, so I gave Kay the rest of my pizza. It was tasty, but not worth making myself sick over it.

Sushi Samba
Sushi Samba was one of the few restaurants that had a dedicated gluten free menu, including tamari sauce instead of soy sauce. I told Kay that it would be pretty lame to go to a sushi place and not be able to partake in any of the soy sauce. We don’t know how much soy sauce affects me, but I’m doing the first year gluten-free with no exceptions, so I’m not testing it now. Maybe in the future I will chance some soy sauce on trips. Who knows.

The waiter tried to convince Kay that he should order a normal sushi plate, but I asked him to just make everything gluten free so that we could share everything as we normally do with sushi. He said this meant skipping out on tempura flakes for Kay. Big whoop.

The sushi tasted OK, but man alive this place was kind of pricey. It was right on the Lincoln Road shopping strip and it seemed super touristy, but then again, everything kind of had that feel in Miami.

Tequiztlan
We went out for tacos with Kay’s brother and I was a little nervous because we didn’t decide where to go beforehand, so we walked around from restaurant to restaurant looking for a menu with something for me to eat. I’m not a big fan of having to walk out of a restaurant because I didn’t do any research about where to eat with my allergy and I felt guilty and ashamed that I was the reason we couldn’t eat so many places.

This definitely stressed me out, but eventually we settled on Tequiztlan and they had lots of corn-only options. We had some salsa and chips and nachos for appetisers. I ordered tostadas with rice and beans for dinner and the boys had tacos. The food was alright, the margaritas kind of sucked and the whole place also seemed overpriced, but as far as GF, it was OK and I felt fine the next day.

Yardbird
The next day we went to Yardbird with Kay’s brother. I was happy to know where we were going beforehand and at that it would have gluten free things to eat. The staff was knowledgeable about gluten-free eating and celiac to some extent and I got to try a house special that they were testing out.

The food was good, the prices were all right and they had hard cider. I was happy!

It’s fairly easy to eat GF in Miami with the usual “safe bets” restaurants like Outback and PF Changs available in addition to a smattering of gluten-friendly places. If I would go back again, I would definitely have researched places to eat first!