Sorry for the lack of posting lately. It’s been a challenging year.
Sorry this is not about Los Angeles. Really, really sorry because I’d eat here all the time.
My wife and I are in Vancouver to go on an Alaskan cruise, and a quick internet search turned up this review of Ask For Luigi on the Gluten Free Vancouver blog.
Thank you, Andrea and Robyn, for the post.
It’s a small restaurant near the historic Gastown district of Vancouver, and they feature hand-made fresh pasta every day. And a wide selection of wines (more whites than reds, which is interesting for an Italian restaurant).
But more importantly, they offer fresh gluten-free pasta (for an additional CAD 2).
I have never had fresh GF pasta. There is nothing wrong with dried pasta, but fresh pasta is different, and the potato, corn, and rice blend pasta they offer is quite yummy with a great taste and nice tooth. It’s been a while since I’ve had real pasta, but I’m not sure I would be able to tell that it was GF if I didn’t order it.
I had the tagliatelle with fennel sausage and rapini. They also prepared the crispy polenta and taleggio cheese for me without the bread crumbs. Both were fantastically delicious. And the portions were nicely sized. I left nicely satisfied, without feeling like I’d eaten too much.
It’s a small restaurant with an open kitchen floorplan, so you can watch everything being prepared. They have a dedicated GF pasta pot, and every dish is sauced in a clean sauté pan, so despite being an Italian restaurant, they can pretty safely serve up a gluten-free meal. All the employees are attentive to and familiar with the challenges of special dietary needs. And just to reinforce the stereotype about Canadians, they’re all ridiculously nice as well.
A pleasant surprise was the cost. Ask For Luigi bills themselves as a casual eatery, but the atmosphere and food makes it feel like a much more upscale establishment, where a dinner for two with drinks could run $150 or more. But for a starter, main dish, and a couple glasses of wine, it was only about CAD 40 (about US $36) per person. Which isn’t an every day meal perhaps, but it’s inexpensive enough to justify eating there with some regularity.
If only I lived in Vancouver, that is.
Ask For Luigi is located at 305 Alexander Street in Vancouver, BC.
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On the wall near the door, there is a sign that I loved:
