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My celiac daughter just returned from Hong Kong where she worked on a college project for 8 weeks.  After her project ended, we both travelled to Beijing for 5 days.

I found very little useful information before her trip.  I could not find a readable restaurant card in Cantonese (for Hong Kong) but Triumph Dining has a Chinese Cuisine card which we used in Beijing (www.triumphdining.com).  My daughter carefully follows the gluten free diet at home but knew it would be a challenge in Hong Kong.  Her goals were to not get hungry, not get sick, and not spend a lot of money.

Hong Kong:

My daughter lived in an apartment in the Mong Kok area of Kowloon.  Since she was on a college student budget, she only ate at inexpensive restaurants which are very common in Hong Kong.  At these small restaurants, usually no one speaks English or someone speaks only very basic  English (ex. numbers, prices, nouns).  The restaurants have pictures or plastic models of their menu items on display usually where you can see them from the street.  They also have English translations of the items on the pictures and menus, although occasionally she found that the translations were not accurate.  Due to the language barrier, there was no way that she could explain her gluten free needs so she would choose items on the menu that had no sauces and looked like they were gluten free.  They eat a lot of steamed rice so she usually picked that plus a plain-looking meat item.  If the menu item she wanted had rice with a sauce then she would use hand signals and picture pointing to substitute the sauced rice with plain rice.  Warning:  She found that rice noodles are often not gluten free because the pot and/or water is used to cook other types of noodles.  She once ordered rice noodles and ended up with a few strands of other noodles in with the rice noodles. Due to the language barrier, she had to take a lot of chances when she ate out.  But she managed to find simple food and she rarely felt sick.
 
When I arrived in Hong Kong at the end of her project, she desperately wanted a good American meal so we went to the Outback in Tsim Sha Tsui (the area in Kowloon where most of the tourist hotels are).  There are many Outbacks in Hong Kong.  This Outback did not have a gluten free menu but the menu was very similar to home so she ordered her usual selection and had a great meal.  We did not have time to check out the more expensive Western-style restaurants in that area but I think those might be a good place to try and get a safe meal.
 
Hong Kong has a food labeling law and the label must declare all gluten (not just wheat) and the ingredients must be written in English.  Warning:  You must read all labels because some of the items that are always gluten free at home (like Lays potato chips) were not gluten free in Hong Kong.  She did not spend any time looking for a store that had gluten free items but she found a store at Victoria Peak  (near the upper tram station) that had gluten free cereal.

Beijing:

Here we used the picture and pointing method again to select food at small restaurants which worked fine.  We stayed at the Peninsula Beijing hotel which had a great breakfast buffet with plenty of food that she could eat such as omelets and fresh fruit. 

We ate dinner at an informal Chinese restaurant across the street from the hotel and put together a good meal from their large picture menu (ask for the English version if they don’t give it to you automatically).  We also ate at Jing, a western-oriented restaurant in the hotel and used the Triumph Dining restaurant card which the staff read with great interest.  The British chef came out to our table and was very helpful.  We had a great dinner (note: this is an expensive restaurant).  Another night, we ate at Huang Ting which is a Chinese restaurant in the hotel.  The staff studied the restaurant card very carefully.  After consulting with the chef, the waitress politely informed us that all of the meat is marinated in soy sauce overnight.  So my daughter had stir fry vegetables and rice.  
On the way to see the Great Wall, we stopped at the Dragon Land Superior Jade Gallery (www.longdishop.com) and ate at their restaurant.  Our private tour guide had called ahead to tell them that we could not eat any wheat or soy sauce.  We had a delicious meal with meat and vegetables which were cooked in a light oil.  The staff speaks little English but I think they would be able to give you a safe meal if you showed them the Triumph Dining restaurant card.
At the Beijing airport, we ate at the Shamrock restaurant.  Their English was a little better and we were able to point to a picture of the salmon dinner and request no sauce.

Airlines:

My daughter ordered a gluten free meal on Continental when she made her airline reservations.  She received a good meal going to Hong Kong.  However, when we flew back from Beijing, the woman at the Continental check-in desk said that gluten free meals were not available from Beijing.  We really scrambled at the airport trying to find something for her to eat on the long plane ride.  Fortunately, the flight attendant managed to find her some fruit and cheese.

My daughter packed packaged gluten free food in her suitcase and had no problems getting it into Hong Kong, China, or the U.S.  I think you could also bring it in your carry-on with no problems although she did not try that.

It was definitely a great trip!

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