back in 2013<\/a>, we have been extremely wary of eating out at local restaurants. Though many places claim to serve gluten-free food, he has been “glutened” many times over the years due to untrained staff and cross-contamination. But, today, I was SERIOUSLY craving some gluten-free Chinese food since it had been way too long since last had any. We happened to remember going to Hot Wok Bistro and decided to try their newer (2015) sister restaurant, Hot Wok Bistro Too, in San Carlos, CA.<\/p>\nHot Wok Bistro Too seemed to come up often when searching for gluten-free Chinese food in the San Mateo area. This made us wonder if this location would be a safer bet to eat at. So, we hopped on the freeway and made our way to San Carlos. This restaurant seemed more spacious and modern than the original one and the large windows in the front made it a whole lot easier to take good photos of the food. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We arrived just as the restaurant opened on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and were promptly seated. I asked the waiter if they had a dedicated gluten-free menu but they did not. Instead, he basically said to order anything we wanted and he would let us know if it could be made gluten-free or not. We decided on Broccoli Chow Fun with pork, Mongolian Beef, Sweet and Sour Chicken, and Orange-Glazed Chicken.<\/p>\n
At one point, the owner came to our table to let us know that the Orange-Glazed Chicken could not be made gluten-free and asked us if we wanted the Lemon Chicken or Dry-Braised (General Chao) Chicken in its place. We opted for the Dry-Braised. The food came out quickly and it all looked AMAZING!<\/p>\n
The Broccoli Chow Fun was our favorite with the Mongolian Beef running a close second. We would definitely order both of those again (which will be every week starting from today ?), albeit a little less “heat” in the Mongolian seasoning since we’re total spice wimps. Both dishes were moist and tasty. The two chicken dishes looked good and had nice flavoring. However, the chicken was dry and hard. I’m not sure if this was how they tried to mimic fried breading or if they just overcooked the meat in general. While I was glad the meat was undercooked, we plan on avoiding chicken in future orders.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We really enjoyed our lunch and our craving for gluten-free Chinese food was finally fulfilled. The entire staff we interacted with spoke English perfectly and had full knowledge of providing “safe” food for those avoiding gluten. I asked if either the San Mateo location or the San Carlos one was better for gluten-free options. The waiter told us that both are the same in that respect. Now that we know this, plus the fact that they’ve had over five years of experience cooking gluten-free, we plan on visiting both restaurants regularly from here on out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ever since Frans was diagnosed with celiac disease back in 2013, we have been extremely wary of eating out at local…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":61919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[252,39],"tags":[10,169,69],"yoast_head":"\n
Hot Wok Bistro in San Mateo, CA - Chinese Food and Gluten-Free Options<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n