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Hi, thank you to the respondents regarding our recent experience at the 
Carraba's Italian Grill restaurant in Reston, Va.

    1.  One person suggested we try the Centreville and Chantilly, Va. 
restaurants the Bonefish Grill, which has lots of entrees that do not need 
any modification to be gluten free, and they have a gf menu.  Their website 
is:  www.bonefishgrill.com.  This person also noted that the American Indian 
Museum near the Air and Space Museum (in downtown Washington, D.C.)  has 
certain dishes marked "gluten free".

   2.   Another response:  Always talk to the kitchen manager when you go to 
a restaurant, even with gf menus.  If they do not have a gf menu, talk to 
the chef or manager.  This person also said, which I enjoyed, "Unless it is 
a completely GF restaurant (ha ha), I think we alsways have to speak to 
someone who we know will take some educated responsibility with our food."

    3.  A Michigan resident has had good and bad experiences with Carraba's. 
Their gluten free menu indicates to ask for their chicken dishes without the 
grill baste (Note:  I had not seen that so this was new to me), but she did 
this 3 times and each time got sick.  There were probably 2 other times they 
ate there or ordered carry out without remembering to say "no grill baste" 
and she was fine.  She also has ordered the chicken soup without the pasta 
(this is on their GF menu), which seemed fine, but that was one of the times 
she got sick and attributed it to the chicken without grill baste.

    4.  Another person just wrote to express anger at me for my idea that 
the problem might have been due to a language barrier in the kitchen.

    (Of course, failure to grasp or follow through is such a common 
difficulty for all of us in so many circumstances, but many times I find 
myself trying to explain the issue to a group of kitchen employees of 
varying nationalities, e.g., at Whole Foods, not one of whom speaks English, 
or good enough English.  This is just a fact of life in our area.)

    Thanks for your responses!  Warm regards,

    Sandy NoVa

*Please provide references to back up claims of a product being GF or not GF*