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Hello, I recently returned from a trip to China and wanted to share my experience in eating gluten-free. I was traveling with a group on a tour of temples and monasteries and other cultural sites. For the most part, our lunches and dinners were pre-ordered. The guide would call ahead, order our meal, and then when we arrived at the restaurant the waitstaff would start bringing out dishes and putting them on a large lazy-susan on the table. This saved a lot of time since ordering for 18 people would take forever. Because we had a couple of food issues aside from my gluten free needs (no msg, vegetarian, nothing spicy, low-fat), they ordered dishes to meet the least common denominator: no soy sauce, no spicy sauces, and no meat. They also asked for the food to be steamed, which would eliminate one of the sources of cross-contamination in the kitchen. Thus, the food was rather plain and bland for the most part but certainly filling and sometimes even quite tasty (it wasn't a trip that was focused on fine dining). They always had soy sauce and chili sauce on the table for those who wanted to add flavor. 

For me, this worked out very well. I was careful to eat just "white" food. That is, if something looked like it had a brownish sauce on it, I didn't eat it out of an excess of caution that the chef might have put used some soy sauce. That usually left me with at least 5 or more dishes I could eat. I certainly didn't starve, although I did get very tired of the usually flavorless white rice.

Breakfasts were almost always at a buffet at the hotels. There was always congee (white rice gruel), usually eggs cooked to order or hard-boiled (sometimes not hard boiled enough for me to feel secure that any salmonella was dead), and many other dishes. Since these dishes were not ordered specifically to be free of soy sauce, I generally stuck with the congee and put some of my own peanuts on it. Some of the toppings for the congee were clearly gluten-free, like peanuts if they had them, so I ate those.  If I ever go to China again, I would bring some sugar and sweet toppings like dried fruit for the congee. It was usually quite tasteless, not salted at all, and most restaurants didn't have any sweeteners. If you could put on the savory toppings it would probably be delicious, but I didn't have that option. 

I hope this helps if you are thinking of visiting China. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about my experience eating Gf in China.

Mary Garrard

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