Tag Archives: vegan ice cream

Eating Out with Allergies in Rome: Dessert Edition

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If there is one thing that Italy is famous for other than pizza and pasta, it has to be the incomparable gelato you can buy on pretty much every street corner or, if in Rome, at what feels like every third shop on the street. When your children have allergies, finding safe desserts is almost always the most difficult challenge when you eat out and even in Rome, was more of a challenge that we would have liked. Lots of shops do offer gluten-free cones or, of course, you can buy a scoop or two in a paper cup instead; and if you’re happy to eat fruity sorbets, then there are some great safe options to be had. Unfortunately, G is not a fan of the sharper flavours of a sorbet and at one point I did wonder if we might end up without trying this delicious Italian treat during our Roman sojourn. However, we did find a couple of gems and I had to share them with you:

Magnum Pleasure Store: We’d wandered past the Magnum Pleasure Store a couple of times on our way to and from our apartment and on one particularly scorching afternoon, we decided it was worth a shot to see if we could find a dairy-free option to help G and M cool down. They are both big fans of vegan Magnums here in the UK with G favouring the almond version over the plain vegan option that M enjoys. It seemed like a good starting point to find an ice-cream for us all, so it was disappointing to discover that there were no vegan ice-creams to be seen. They selected a cold drink instead whilst Mike chose the toppings for his designer magnum at the behest of both children – the speciality of the pleasure store.

I headed to the freezer to see what I could find and struck proverbial gold. They might not have stocked vegan magnums, but instead I stumbled across the fantastically named “Bikini 1969”, a gluten- and dairy-free ice-cream sandwich bar. Needless to say, both G and M were quick to take up my offer to try this treat  – their first ice-cream sandwiches ever – and what a hit it was. We didn’t quite make it back there every day, but we did partake of an ice-cream from the Magnum pleasure store more than once during our stay.

 

Sublime Gelateria: This was another unexpected find during our time in Rome and one that we came across disappointingly late in our trip, especially given its proximity to where we were staying. Situated just a couple of doors down from Mama Eat Lab, M spotted this gelateria thanks to the duck-egg blue Vespa in the doorway and the brightly coloured sign next to its entrance stating it had vegan-friendly and gluten-free goodies inside. Having struggled our way through the impressive 3-course meal at Mama Eat Lab, none of us had space for a sneaky ice-cream, not even M, but we vowed to head back the following day and even managed a return visit as we headed back to the airport on our final day.

All of the ice-creams were clearly marked with the red scoops depicting those flavours that were safe for vegans and therefore for our dairy-free duo. What was fantastic was that there was a great mix of traditional ice-cream flavours, fruit sorbets and some more unusual ones for us to try and they all tantalised the taste-buds. I can’t quite remember all of the flavours we tried between us, but I know chocolate orange, fig, peach and lime were amongst them. Once again it was fantastic to see G and M experiencing being able to order a gluten-free cone filled with 2 scoops of their choice of an array of safe ice-cream flavours, something they’ve never been able to do before.

Sweet Treats in Berlin

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The benefit of picking an apartment or apart-hotel to stay in is that there’s enough of a kitchen to allow us to cook safely for the children and we always travel with our extra suitcase of safe foods to make sure that we have enough of the essentials to see us through our time away from home. We never know what we’ll be able to find food-wise and it’s good to have a plan in our back pockets “just in case”. However, let’s be realistic, who really wants to cook when they’re on holiday? Certainly not me and so we had settled on a good compromise for a short break in Berlin, one that we’ve found has worked well for us in the past and which keeps the children happy too.

Even when we travel in the UK, I always make sure that I have breakfast cereals and cartons of rice milk packed as we’re never quite sure what dairy-free milks we will find and we start our days with breakfast in the room. Thanks to the great location of our Citadines Kurfürstendamm Berlin hotel, there was a Starbucks coffee shop and local bakery within easy walking distance, so Mike trekked out each morning to pick up a coffee for me and some freshly baked pastries and bread rolls for us to enjoy. We had also agreed with G and M that we would take packed lunches out with us daily and so had taken some Bfree wraps for M to enjoy, whilst we had picked up some great gluten-free bread rolls for G in a local supermarket. Both kids love cooked meats, so finding some safe lunch meat in the same supermarket was a great bonus and absolutely delighted them. Sadly, this same supermarket didn’t stock any rice milk, although there was an impressive array of other alternative milks and we ended up getting some soya milk for G and just used our supply from home for M’s daily breakfast.

However, as we found our way to dinner one evening at the fantastic Pizzeria Simela – don’t worry, there’ll be more about this in my next blog post – we stumbled across Denns Biomarkt and as we had a few minutes to spare, I suggested we popped in to have a quick look around. This has to be one of the best spur-of-the-moment decisions I’ve made in quite a while as, not only did their bakery have gluten-free fresh bread available, but there was a great selection of other allergy-friendly options available too, including numerous cartons of rice cream, which somehow made their way into the spare suitcase for our homeward journey! M also took a fancy to the black rice milk that he discovered, though sadly the final product proved not to be as tasty as he was hoping it might be. Here are a few of the freefrom finds that were the biggest hits with G and M:

Friederike from Jute Backerei: Well, who could refuse these amazing looking cookies from this gluten-free bakery? The clear labelling meant I could see from a quick glance that these were gluten-, dairy- and egg-free, so potentially a safe treat for M to enjoy alongside his sister. With the help of Google translate, I scanned through the list of ingredients and was happy to see that whilst they were baked in an environment containing soya, the cookies themselves were soya-free and didn’t contain anything that made me particularly worried about M eating one. They were absolutely huge and, I am reliably informed by both children, also extremely delicious!

Das Eis Triple Choc Ice-cream: Since getting home from Berlin, I’ve discovered that Das Eis is a huge vegan brand of ice creams and sorbets. Made from almond and rice milk, this ice-cream was also soya-free and so another treat that I was happy to let M try – once he had taken an extra dose of his array of anti-histamines and other medicines. There were a couple of flavours available in Denns Biomarkt as well as some other brands of dairy-free ice-cream, but the Das Eis Triple Choc was the only one that was also vegan and soya-free and therefore the best option for M. The children somewhat reluctantly shared the small tub with Mike, but they all agreed it was worth it.

Ben & Jerry’s Non-Dairy Chunky Monkey Ice-cream: After our trip to the DDR museum, M asked if we could go on river cruise to enjoy our lunch and given the glorious day, Mike and I were both more than happy to agree. I had spotted some ice-creams for sale in the museum shop and had somewhat mindlessly looked to see what was available as I waited for Mike and the children to complete their purchases. G is notoriously difficult to buy an ice-cream for when we’re out and about as she won’t eat ice lollies and it’s rare to find a dairy-free ice-cream available for her. So, I was delighted to spot this vegan ice-cream, not least because we also felt we could allow M to try it as well whilst we were on holiday. The small pot was enough to satisfy them both before they tucked into their packed lunches and kept the smiles on their faces for the rest of the afternoon.