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Gluten Free Restaurant in The Woodlands |
| To be honest, we didn’t think they were open yet. That’s the pleasant surprise that occurred on Saturday afternoon. We’d just been by to speak with one of the owners of the newest restaurant in Alden Bridge Village Center, The G’s Healthy Gourmet a little over a week ago and could have sworn he said it would be about a month until they would be ready to open. Tiffiany Darnell, another of the owners that greeted us on Saturday, explained: the Grand Opening is in fact scheduled for July 8. Confusion now laid to rest, we were thrilled to give this new, all-gluten free restaurant a try during their soft opening.
For sufferers of Celiac disease (or Coeliac disease – pronounced /ˈsiːli.æk/) and those with wheat allergies, the arrival of a gluten-free restaurant in The Woodlands is fantastic news. Although only a small percentage of the population have these afflictions, a small percentage of a very large number is still just that, a very large number. And when the only currently known “treatment” is to avoid gluten, any help is a cheerfuly welcomed. Gluten is found in an extremely large amount of foods and beverages, because it is contained in wheat (including kamut and spelt), barley, rye, and triticale, as well as the use of gluten as a food additive in the form of a flavoring, stabilizing or thickening agent. And since ordinary wheat flour contains approximately 12% gluten, even a tiny amount of wheat flour can cross-contaminate a gluten-free product. So a gluten-free diet rules out all ordinary breads, pastas, and many convenience foods; and it also excludes gravies, custards, soups and sauces thickened with wheat, rye, barley or other gluten-containing flour(s). What a gluten-free diet doesn’t exclude is taste and variety; which is what we learned in our evening at The G’s. Just across the patio from Rico’s Hacienda in the Alden Bridge Village Center, The G’s Healthy Gourmet has lots of windows, allowing for tons of natural light and people watching; an especially fun pastime when kids are clambering all over Big Barbara, the 15-foot tall welded steel statue created by Peter Reginato just outside the door. The décor inside the restaurant is unpretentious and tasteful with black linen tablecloths and napkins on the tables. We began with Buffalo Nachos for our appetizer. Not to be confused with “Buffalo Nachos” which would have some sort of hot-sauce-soaked chicken bits, the Buffalo Nachos at The G’s include a generous portion of mildly seasoned ground buffalo meat. This along with black beans, fresh salsa and raw cheese topped a warm pile of crispy corn tortilla chips creates an appetizer that everyone can enjoy.
While we waited for the arrival of our appetizer, we asked another couple of diners how their meal was and if they had any recommendations; they both were happy to state everything was wonderful and highly recommended the Filet Mignon. Never one to pass up a great steak, I heeded their advice and my companion ordered the Buffalo Bolognese. I left how it would be cooked up to the third owner and executive chef (as well as doting father and husband) Nick Darnell. Nick’s creations in the kitchen are well known in Dallas, where he and Tiffiany co-own the popular healthy cuisine restaurant, Kozy Kitchen. Our entrees arrived in due time, beautifully presented and just like the Buffalo Nachos, in generous portions. The near-perfectly cooked Filet (apologies to the chef, I prefer mine a little less done and probably should have said so) was tender and flavorful. The center-cut, 8 ounce grass-fed filet comes with Chef’s mash – potatoes with their skins, mashed with butter, heavy cream, garlic and a little salt and pepper, along with a blend of organic market veggies; in this case zucchini, yellow squash, red and green peppers, mushrooms, onions and fresh spinach. The Buffalo Bolognese features organic gluten free pasta topped with homemade Buffalo Bolognese – a sauce that has been handcrafted and slow simmered with basil, garlic and some salt & pepper, and then a sprinkling of grated raw Romano cheese that added a nice tang. As neither of us are regularly gluten-free dieters, we were perhaps more surprised than we should have been that the pasta had a distinctively firmer texture to it. Tiffiany later explained that in order to be gluten-free, the pasta is made from rice flour or sometimes quinoa or maize flours. As for the flavor, it reminded us of whole-wheat pasta. We both resisted the urge to finish off our meals as we were excited to try Tiffiany’s gluten-free dessert. Tiffiany is the director of the bakery and uses her extensive research into the array of alternative grains available in order to create gluten-free desserts that those in need of gluten-free foods and those that just want to see what it’s all about (like us) have some well-deserved difficulty distinguishing a difference from any other desserts. Her selection this evening was a Chocolate Strawberry Whipped Cream Cake, and as with all of her desserts, is a completely original concept in its creation. The cake was tender and moist, with two layers separated by slices of fresh strawberries in a bed of whipped cream and just the right amount of whipped cream frosting. The slice came dusted with powdered sugar and topped with more fresh strawberries. I don’t mind saying we didn’t resist the urge to polish that off.
The G’s Healthy Gourmet is a delightful addition to the ever-growing list of restaurants in the greater Woodlands area. The menu consists of foods that are always gluten free, organic and healthy – or at least usually healthier than other options out there, in the case of their desserts! Minimal preparation methods are used in an effort to maintain as many natural nutrients as possible. The G’s offers a flavorful, colorful, variety-filled menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you’d like to be among the first to give them a try, be sure to cut your servers a little slack as they complete their training in these next couple of weeks and work out any kinks before the grand opening July 8. Hours at The G’s are: Sunday, 9-3; Monday, 8-3; Tuesday – Thursday, 8-10; Friday, 8-11 and Saturday, 9-11. The G’s is located at the Alden Bridge Village Center, 8000 Research Forest Drive; call 281 419-7787 for more information. Their website is currently under construction. |
Tags: allergies, celiac, coeliac, dining, food allergies, gluten, gluten free, Restaurants, the g's gluten free restaurant, the woodlands, wheat allergy
June 27th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
[...] Click here to visit a review of TheG’s, by Woodlands Events Blog [...]
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Ok — Round 2 for this place for us — and we liked it even better than the first time (which apparently was like the first week they were open), so this time I decided to post a reply to this article, to spread the word. The timing is better from the kitchen, and we tried different dishes tonight.
Tonight we had :
Shrimp Bisque — SO good and even our toddlers liked it.
Mixed organic salad greens with blue cheese, apples and strawberries with a balsamic vinagrette. — my husband liked the vinagrette so much that after he finished the salad, he ate the left over vinagrette with a spoon!
Chef’s special — Surf and Turf — 8 oz filet mignon with wild caught shrimp and wild sea scallops, and it came with the chef’s mashed potatoes (with parmesan cheese and garlic, I think), and grilled mixed veggies. What can I say — YUM.
The toddlers shared a kid’s spaghetti with buffalo bolognese meat sauce with GF pasta — I confirmed it with the chef — the pasta is corn based — he likes it better than rice or quinoa pasta — says it stands up better and doesn’t get so gummy. And the meat sauce rivaled my homemade one, which happens to be one of my specialties. By that I mean that I don’t usually like to go to ANY restaurant and order their spaghetti with meat sauce, because I don’t usually like the ground beef used in the average restaurant with the oil it puts out. It usually leaves a nasty greasy film on the roof of my mouth, so I tend to avoid restaurant spaghetti. This stuff was ADULT quality, house made, NOT spaghetti-Os, like kids menu stuff usually is, spiced right, and NOT bland, and I would (AND WILL) pay to have it myself — I liked it as much as I like the meat sauce I make at home — not just the kid’s menu for the kids. It was WONDERFUL! They also shared a kid’s fruit plate (apples, bananas, strawberries and orange)
This time we tried dessert — we had a GF peaches and cream cake. The cake was very dense, not light and fluffy, and not too sweet. If you prefer light and fluffy, the frosting was out of this world light and fluffy whipped cream based frosting, but the cake was denser but coarser than your average pound cake. Now for ME — THAT happens to be heaven on a plate. I don’t care for light and fluffy too sweet cakes like the average out of the box cake. And I HATE regular buttercream frosting, royal icing or fondants. So for me, this was seriously a WONDERFUL cake – two layers, with big pieces of peaches sandwiched between the layers and in the frosting. YUMMY. All of their baked goods are made in house and they are GF — not that I care about that part, but the GF crowd can feel free to pig out.
The chef gave us a slice of his gluten free house made bread to try too — made with fava bean flour and some other GF flours (I think he said 4 different bean flours). It was also dense and flavorful bread. Not yeasty or with a mild salty taste, which was my only beef with it, but I am not sure GF breads CAN be made yeasty or slightly salty like an old fashioned baguette, which is my absolute favorite bread to eat (I don’t bake, so I really wouldn’t know either). Their dessert menu also included Italian cream cake, PB and J cake, a Chocolate and Strawberry cake (I think), Brownies and Cookies. The chef’s special dessert was some kind of chocolate cake with espresso cream frosting. I am SOOO looking forward to trying them all.
Anyway, next time we will try breakfast! Seriously all, — try it yourselves, and if you like it, spread the word about this place. It’s soooo tasty, and up to the quality and nutritional standards we hold ourselves to at home (if you happen to live in a home that tries to live as organic as possible, like we do). If you want to be able to continue to have this place open in the Woodlands, eat there when you can, and spread the word to your friends and neighbors. It doesn’t just have to be to the organic, gluten free, diabetic crowd. ANYONE would like it, but it’s REALLY great for those folks that NEED the specialty stuff. If it gets too popular, I’m sure he’ll open a second branch or expand it. I haven’t met a small business owner yet that doesn’t want their business to grow and be successful.
Yes, it’s a little more expensive than Olive Garden — more in line pricewise with Outback — but it’s also FAR better quality — which is what we pay the big bucks for and go out of our ways to get the rest of the time, with the organic, raw milk, grass fed and organic meats, organic veggies, etc. So it’s in line with the somewhat higher prices we are willing to pay for the serious upgrade we get in quality. And as long as you DON’T pick the filet mignon ($20) or the surf and turf ($28), most entrees were under $20, including the wild salmon ones. (Please understand I didn’t mean don’t pick them. I just meant those are their two most expensive items– by all means pick them if you want them. YUMMY!) I think they averaged about $16 for an entree on the dinner menu. I think that’s what Outback runs too. Their vegetarian entree was $12. Oh — and the bison tacos on the dinner menu is 3 tacos, ranchero beans, and salsa, which is a larger serving than the lunch menu was. We didn’t order them again this time, but only because we wanted to try different items on the menu. I still thought they were wonderful the first time we went.
They are open 7 days a week, but sundays are 9am to 3pm and mondays are 8am to 3 pm. The rest of the week is 8 am to 9 or 10 pm, I think, but I didn’t write it down. They finally have the hours posted by the front door though, so at least you can see them.
I hope anyone who sees this decides to give this place a chance, whether they have wheat allergies, celiac disease, or would just like to eat some high quality, organic, grass fed meats and organic veggies, and wonderful desserts.
September 5th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Thanks for coming to our neighborhood!