One of the more famous restaurants in Ithaca, NY is Moosewood. It's been around for a long time -- more than 35 years. I have two of their cookbooks: their earliest, which is no longer available, and Moosewood Cooks at Home. They are mainly a vegetarian restaurant, but sometimes they have fish dishes. When I went there recently for lunch, their daily menu (but not their permanent menu) listed the dishes that could be made gluten free. You have to be careful though and make sure that you specify that you want gluten free, as some of the ingredients of the prepared dish as listed on the menu, are not in and of themselves gf. Their stew was served over couscous, and a salad contained blue cheese. Both of those dishes were listed as available gluten free.
My own choices didn't appear to have anything that needed to be altered, but I did ask! You can never let down your guard! I chose the deliacata squash salad which was served with cheddar cheese (optional -- some patrons of Moosewood are vegans), cranberries, walnuts, and greens, and a light vinaigrette dressing. It was a tiny bit heavy on the greens for me; I always want just the squash (or more usually the beets in these kinds of salads), but the squash really were delicate and kind of caramelized a bit. Tasty. The salad came with a cup of soup. Both soups on the daily menu were listed as gf. I chose the curried lentil, a little worried that it might be too heavy on the curry for me, but it wasn't.
If it had been dinner I would have had the only dessert that was listed as gf, which was a raspberry ricotta mousse! Sounded really wonderful, but eating it in the middle of the day would have meant the end of my day. Too much sugar and I'm out.
Moosewood is in the DeWitt Mall in downtown Ithaca. There is a marvelous bookstore, a natural and organic themed grocery store, an art gallery, and some interesting boutique stores, featuring toys, antiques, and clothes. I personally love Ithaca, where it is always 1968!
Cathy
