Orlando's Carrabba's Italian Grill

In lieu of glamorous New Year's Eve plans, my family went out to dinner at Carrabba's Italian Grill. The descriptor "Italian Grill", combined with the fact that Carrabba's is in fact a chain restaurant would seem to portend bad gluten free circumstances, but they actually have a thorough GF menu and the staff is well educated.

A link to their gluten free menu (PDF): http://www.carrabbas.com/menu/pdf/GFmenu.pdf

To start, we ordered the Insalata Johnny Rocco, a salad filled with grilled shrimp and scallops. As a recent seafood convert and diehard salad-ophile, this was revolutionary.

The only change that had to be made was to request the seafood be grilled without baste, but the quality was so high, the food was so fresh, and there were so many other flavors in the salad that it didn't matter at all that there wasn't a marinade.

For dinner, I ordered the Pollo Rosa Maria with mashed potatoes. A huge double portion!

The sauce was creamy, along with the garlic-y potatoes. Salty prosciutto and pungent fontina cheese was melted throughout the chicken breast. It's unusual to find stuffed poultry that is gluten free, so this was a nice surprise and a definitely delicious dinner.

Overall, Carrabba's is a good choice for a nice dinner out. It's pricy, but you are getting big portions and great quality for your money, as well as wide gluten free selection. As well, Carrabba's is a national chain, so there's probably one near to you.

Ciao bella!

my cousin AJ and I