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Hi, everyone,
I'm pleased that Jill was able get a message directly to the president
of the company, and I'm also encouraged to hear that he realizes this
represents a training and communication issue. I hope that bears fruit
for us. Meanwhile, many of the responses I've had to the original post,
as well as the letter from the president, give me additional cause for
concern.
First, the vast majority of people who responded said that they've tried
eating there, but always became ill. Two people reported that the
managers of their locations told them that the GF pasta is prepackaged
and frozen in a separate pouch from the manufacturer and warmed separately.
I'm concerned that, even if that information is true, the company
doesn't seem to have a standardized process, as the explanation above
appears to be different from the way the president described the process
in his letter to Jill:
>>When we cook our gluten free pasta it is always the first product we
cook in the morning in freshly cleaned and sanitized
pasta cookers with fresh clean water. We then empty the cooker after
cooking the gluten free pasta and re-clean the
equipment before moving on to our regular pasta. In addition, as orders
for GF pasta come into the kitchen
we reheat the GF pasta order in its own pan and NOT in our large pasta
cookers. We go to great lengths to insure there
is no cross contamination during the preparation and cooking process.<<
(And adding to that -- they don't make the GF pasta in dedicated pots?
You cannot simply "clean and sanitize" pots that are used to make
regular pasta and use them to make GF pasta -- the residue from regular
pasta is so hard to remove that Celiacs are urged to get new cookware,
so I'd hate to think about trying to get commercial kitchen levels
cleaned out of a pan.)
Finally, and most importantly, this wasn't simply a "communication
issue." My daughter asked the server, who answered that they used the
same water. She asked her to double check, and management confirmed the
process. So either this one location (Deptford, NJ) doesn't have a clue
and is waaaaay off the corporate grid, or else the training is spotty
enough throughout the organization that we'd have to be immensely
cautious. I wrote originally to warn about the chain generally because
this is so basic a thing that I worried this indicated lax training
throughout the organization.
And btw, one person noted that they'd had the same issue with Macaroni
Grill, and we had the same issue with them in Wilmington, DE, as well.
For us personally, there are a great many things we're willing to take a
chance on in eating out, but pasta still seems to be on the very
dangerous end of the spectrum.
Regards,
Deb
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