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Targeting the gluten-sensitive, with an eye on cost
By Mohana Ravindranath, The Washington Post
August 24, 2012
R.L. Boyd, executive chef at Georgetown’s Mie N Yu restaurant, loves inventing new dishes.
Most recently, he came up with an elaborate preparation of rockfish, set on a bed of crab fried rice—short grain brown rice, not white—with a red curry, ginger, carrot, and Tamari sauce. After he prepared it, he took a picture of it with his phone.
Another time, he engineered a tricky oil-free eggs benedict preparation.
Boyd considers these dishes particularly important because they were free of gluten, a substance found in wheat and other grains, and they were virtually indistinguishable from their gluten-filled counterparts.
In the past, he said, gluten-sensitive patrons have been restricted to bland preparations of rice or vegetables because the chefs weren’t trained to cook without gluten. But as 11 percent of the U.S. population have some kind of gluten sensitivity—whether a wheat allergy or full-flown case of celiac disease—Boyd figures to ignore them would be to “miss out on a chunk of money.”
Whereas other restaurateurs might consider the gluten-sensitive population a challenge, because of the ubiquity of gluten in most food preparations, Mie N Yu has chosen to invite them in, leading to innovations in the kitchen.
The restaurant has been offering a “gluten-free” menu since 2009—though it and other restaurants are now using the term “gluten-friendly” to hedge against the slight risk of gluten-contamination, general manager Mike Cherner said.
The strategy brings in customers. On an average night, the restaurant serves about 15 gluten-sensitive patrons out of 200 guests.
Mie N Yu is one of hundreds of restaurants in Washington, D.C. offering gluten-free options, according to Betsy Craig, chief executive of Kitchen with Confidence, an organization training restaurants to deal with customers’ food allergies.
