Help with special diet

Please can someone help? I posted a question a week ago %26amp; have had no replies,surely there is someone out there who has some advice for me? We are arriving in Hong Kong in one week%26#39;s time. My husband has a food allergy %26amp; will be very ill if he eats anything which has flour in it. This means that sadly we cannot eat any chinese food because of the soy sauce %26amp; the noodles. He cannot eat pasta,pizza, bread,cakes, dim sum etc etc. He can eat any fish,meat,vegetable and rice so long as there is no sauce which has been thickened with flour. PLEASE, PLEASE someone must know where he can eat safely without worrying if he will be ill.

Help with special diet

I%26#39;m sure any good restaurant in Hong Kong would be able to accommodate your husbands allergy. Call ahead to where you are eating a day or two before (or have the concierge do it ) and alert the kitchen. I%26#39;m sure they can come up with something tasty and interesting for your husband. People in NY do this all the time and I can%26#39;t imagine Hong Kong would be any different. Good luck and have a great trip =-)

Help with special diet

Not sure where you%26#39;re staying, but get someone at the hotel to write in Chinese the full details of your husband%26#39;s allergy so you can show it to restaurants and make them understand the severity of the issue.

There are plenty of western restaurants in HK so I assume he would be able to eat the same as he would back home.

Don%26#39;t write off the Chinese restaurants, either. Cantonese food is strong in fish and seafood in general and plain rice, egg-fried rice etc are available in any restaurant. Soy sauce is not as prevalent as we (westerners) think in chinese cooking.

Maybe some local Chinese food experts in this forum can suggest some suitable dishes? It seems a shame to come all this way and be stuck in salad bars and french restaurants all the time!

Can you tell us maybe what he could eat usually while at home? Salad w/ vinegar and olive oil? One thing that seems okay to me is sushi, which you can find them in many places in HK. Ask them to take out wasabi as the fake ones would contain flour too.. just checked, unless they are real fresh wasabi which you can only find them in upscale Jap restaurant. The other thing you could do esp. in HK is to go to a bit upscale restaurant and ask the manager about the allergy and I%26#39;m sure they could do smth about it. The local ones prob. wont bother / know how to handle such situation. Hope that helps.

OK, I have a registered dietitian in my family. So this is what she says:

1) What kind of ';flour'; are you talking about? (wheat flour?) Because question is are you saying he needs a ';wheat free'; diet? There are many ';flours';.... for example, can he eat buckwheat? millet? quinoa? etc. Need this piece of information to refer you anything further.

2) Is this a diagnosis by a doctor? Or your own conclusion based on daily and past experience?

3) What happens when he comes into contact with this kind of ';banned'; foods you have listed here?

Unfortunately, Asian foods are very much about starch, carbs, sauces, a lot of added condiments that you might not be able to tell from just looking at it, or tasting it. Many times, chefs don%26#39;t even know 100% about the ingredients as the sources of certain ingredients are not clear all the time. A lot are premixed, prepared by wholesalers, handed to the restaurant... etc. So unless you are talking about a restaurant that does 100% organic, and home cooking style.... you are going to be susceptible to some kind of risk.

I will wait for you information and give you further info.

You can PM me if you wish.

Katetam - Husband can%26#39;t eat wheat flour so his food has to be gluten free. He has been diagnosed by a doctor as having coeliac disease. He cannot each quinona,buckwheat etc. He can eat cornflour. We find that flour is addded to a lot of food ';unseen'; as flavourings etc. Breakfast cereals are a problem but he can eat meat,fish,poultry vegetables,salads etc. When we have travelled to other countries we have eaten Indian food as they use chick pea or lentil flour which is ok. We visit steak restaurants also but would love someone to recommend some nice restaurants we could eat at in Hong Kong. We are coming for the rugby 7%26#39;s and so know Hong Kong will be very busy so thought if we had some idea of where to eat before we arrived it would help. Thanks for any information you can give us.

well, it%26#39;s actually NOT that bad afterall !!

According to the hospital guidelines for patients with celiac disease, they can eat these that are common in HK (notice buckwheat?).... it%26#39;s up to you of course, and you know best what%26#39;s ok and what%26#39;s not. but this is the guideline:

Rice, corn, millet, buckwheat, potato, corn starch, sago (西米), rice vermicelli (米粉), some common Chinese rice cereal products and gluten free wheat flour (河粉, 瀨粉, 銀針粉, 澄麵, 粘米粉, 糯米粉, 馬蹄粉, 粟粉, 薯粉, 黃豆粉, 葛根粉等)

Basically, alot of the see through noodles here in HK (asia) will be OK. I was actually on a similar diet many years ago with a ';leaky gut'; syndrome.... and was on gluten free diet... was not impossible.

Another worthy article (maybe you read already) but if not:

…about.com/od/…ChineseRestaurants.htm

Don%26#39;t know if this link would work, but under the ';restaurant cards'; link, you can choose Chinese, and it would pop up something like this:

…about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm…

How about oil?I presume you travel quite a bit, would he have adverse reaction with possible ';contaminated'; gluten oil ? Fried noodles is one common dish he can eat here with no soy sauce, but white sauce (cornflour)... or as suggested by the link, bring your own soy sauce that is gluten free :

…about.com/od/…SoySaucePacket.htm

my family member is busy right now, she says she will look up some info for you... if anything useful, I post here for you by Monday.