Fred's Mexican Cafe - Kihei, Maui

Rating:

In Brief: A Mexican restaurant with a GF menu?! Yes! We dinned safely at Fred's.

I don't usually expect a Mexican restaurant to have great GF experience or sensibilities. This isn't a slam against Mexico, it's just been our experience that we need to be very selective about what to order when visiting this type of restaurant.

For this meal we had two adults and one eight year old little boy who require a GF menu. One adult ate before we left for lunch and the little boy was expecting to eat a lunch that his mom packed for him. Wow, were we ever surprised when the waiter responded to a GF question (it was decided to try and get corn tortillas) with; "Oh, wait a minute, you need our wheat free menu". We all looked at each other and said, "Uh, yeah, that would be nice."

These guys have their act together! Their menu is actually a list of items that they think are safe and things they don't think are GF. They offer a few suggestions, tell you what items that make up a meal you should substitute and in the end remind you that they can only do their best.

Now get this; Fred's had a staff meeting to address the GF menu requirements they are constantly getting. The output of that meeting was this GF menu/guide. This is something that other restaurants could really learn from. Our waiter thinks that this guide exists at all of their affiliated restaurants too... well we plan to find out! :)

To top it all off, as my wife was ordering her lunch, the waiter said, "You better not get the black beans, they're made with a broth that contains wheat." Now that's the kind of experience that puts you at ease.

A GF Mexican restaurant named Fred's on Maui, we dinned there safely!