Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Michaels Genuine - From a GF Prospective...

I get why a lot of people love Michael's Genuine. I like the decor, I'm all for restaurants in the Design District (and love promoting the 2nd Saturday Art Walk - if you haven't been, it's wonderful, but, I'll take Wynwood over the Design District for Art Walk anytime).

To get back to real point... If your GF and at Michael's Genuine, my opinion, its not the place for you. It's overpriced to begin with, although they tout having the freshest ingredients, which I'm not here to dispute, the selection of items, for those that are GF, is just not there.

See a dinner menu to judge for yourself. I know I'm more difficult than most. I don't eat pork or shellfish, so that limited my search to chicken or cow. Everything I craved on the menu, I couldn't have. The shortrib sounded delicious, but contained breadcrumbs in the sauce, and I was told wasn't worthwhile without the sauce. Under snacks, the thick cut potato chips with pain fried onion dip sounded out of this world - but no, it had gluten. I can go on.. but, it's painful to do so... so I won't. I'll just say, finding a GF item that sounded exciting, on their rather exciting menu, was impossible!

Here's what I had...

I started with the "House Salad" at $11. It comes with "swank farms lettuces, pears, pomegranate, blue cheese, pecans." Yes, I know, no blue cheese for us Celiacs. They were kind enough to take it out for me. I shared the salad, 86 the blue cheese. The description says nothing of the dressing, it was a vinaigrette, but, it was incredibly sour. With pears and pomegranates, I craved a sweet dressing. I really think the blue cheese is what makes this salad come together. It just didn't cut it, it was painfully sour, to the point where I just didn't want to finish it. Also... not sure I could really tell the difference between "swank farms lettuce" and publix lettuce, or any bagged lettuce. Nothing special at all about this salad.




Next, I had the "Pan roasted 1/2 "poulet rouge" chicken" which originally contained roasted garlic mashed potatoes and escarole - for $23. The roasted garlic mashed potatoes contained dairy, which I personally don't eat with meat, so they were nice enough to substitute the mash for "wood roasted potatoes" pictured above.


Let's be honest here, I love chicken, but... is 1/2 chicken ever worth $23?? I can go to Joe's Stone Crab and get DELICIOUS chicken for $5.95 (and the portion of chicken is much more substantial and flavorful at Joe's)! This chicken, although touted as organic, farm raised, exception chicken... was just plain ol' chicken. Nothing special. The potatoes... same. Nothing flavorful, or exciting enough to make me want to go back... Had a hard time finishing my plate, was painful to keep chewing.


My review, thumbs down for us Celiacs, sorry, but, this place just isn't meant for us. Save you're hard earned money.





Michael's Genuine Food & Drink on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

  1. Blue cheese tests negative for gluten, despite its preparation, so it's okay - see:
    http://glutenfreecooking.about.com/od/soupsandsalads/f/Is-It-Safe-To-Eat-Blue-Cheese-On-A-Gluten-Free-Diet.htm

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  2. So interesting! Thank you for sharing. I recall getting explosively sick when eating blue cheese (later finding out it was made with a bread mold). Would love to hear more comments on this hot topic!

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