This may get rotten vegetables thrown at me from the crowd but I was thinking vegan restaurants could be a good option.  You'd still have to perform all your due diligence, of course, but they'd probably be rather enthusiastically anti-egg.  One place in particular I thought of has dedicated vegan food Lotus Garden.

We're happy you found it, too!

OMG Thank you so much PurpleCat for all the information. This really makes me feel better and there are great ideas to try out at restaurants.

GoingNuts, my son is 3.5 years old and he is only allergic to eggs (severely, he gets anaphylactic reactions when he is in contact with eggs)

I'm so happy I found this forum! thank you

Egg only? 

Hi!

My DD has many allergies including egg (she even has some weird ones like garlic).  She is now 15 and can eat baked egg but not direct egg.  When she was young she could not eat egg in any form.

We never take her anywhere for breakfast and we never eat in a restaurant that serves breakfast all day.  When she was a toddler and I cooked eggs on Sunday morning, she would crawl upstairs and stay in her bedroom.  This was before we knew she had an egg allergy too.  Breathing in "egg air" made her feel "yucky".

We do not trust any restaurant pasta to be egg free.

I use to check on breads but once she developed an allergy to sesame, restaurant bread just became an automatic no.

Desserts were always a no due to all of her allergies.


Other than those limits, yes, we do eat in restaurants.

DD and I both carry "chef's cards" in our purses.  There are forms online to make these, I just make my own in Word, print, cut out and therefore, we don't need them back.  It can stay with a waitress, manager, or chef for our visit.  On that it states DD has multiple allergies and "Please make my food away from any of my allergens with clean tools because my food cannot touch what I am allergic to."  And then we list her long list of allergens. 

I use to speak to the manager when we arrived and then the wait person.  Sometimes the manager is involved and other times not.  It depends on the restaurant protocol.  You can always call ahead.  I did that when we first started eating out for my own peace of mind.

Now that DD is older, she speaks directly to the wait person and then whomever else on staff that has questions.  They will involve me if they have questions DD can not answer and at this point, I will interrupt if I don't like something in the conversation however, DD is becoming restaurant savvy so there is much less of my involvement.

We have had great success eating out at both chain and independent restaurants.  Traveling out of state makes me nervous but I go with a plan of "safe" places to eat and start with those.  This place is great for that.  We have members that live all over the country and they are so helpful suggesting places they eat at with success.

Most recently I posted about a lunch out at a new place.  DD was tired of eating burgers with no bun for lunch.  This place made her a "custom" chicken quessadilla using their safe pizza dough and all fresh ingredients.  Some restaurants and chefs go out of their way, others are more comfortable sticking to the exact ingredients on their menu items and determining what is safe.  Either way works for us.  Sometimes we have had managers prepare DD's food to ensure it's safety.  Did not ask for this but it happened twice at Red Robin when we traveled out of state.  Also out of state, we ate out at one location and the manager did not make the food but was involved all the way through even escorting us out to be sure DD was safe and happy and that we would visit again.

DD also went on her 8th grade class trip to Washington DC.  I did not go.  She had a blast.  I did a lot of homework for that trip.  Spoke with each place she would dine at and made sure there were safe options.  The chef at the White House restaurant was fantastic as was the chef at breakfast, on the cruise on the Potomac, etc.... and then the fast food and food courts were well researched and DD knew what to eat and not eat.  She still asked and they could not have been nicer.


My advice, be careful, thoughtful and ready.  I still stress a bit when we eat out but with each successful meal, a tiny bit less.  Start simple and find your own comfortable way.  You will be your son's best advocate to start and then teacher as he grows up.  My goal was to have DD independent so that she could go off with friends without me in High School and most importantly, be prepared to self advocate for college, which for her is 2 years away.

My kids have a longer list of allergens so my knowledge or avoidance of some restaurants is often limited by the other allergens.

For us, our initial eating out experiences were usually at a time when it was slower.  So yes, it might mean a 3pm late lunch or early dinner.  I was also prepared to walk out if my questions weren't answered or I was uncomfortable.

Outback was one of our initial go to places.  Wendy's has their information up on the wall. 

Welcome guera11!

I have no experience with egg allergy, so I hope some of the egg-allergic folks will chime in.  But one thing many of us have in common is being very wary of restaurants, and doing a lot of research before eating in them.

Many large chain restaurants have websites with nutritional information including allergen info - Chipotle is a good example of that.  You might start by visiting some of their websites and see if any look like good bets wrt use of egg.

How old is your son, and when was he diagnosed?

Good luck, and welcome!

Amy

I'm new to this forum and so glad I found it.

My son is extremely allergic to eggs and I just feel unsafe to have him eat at a restaurant, but I am SO tired of cooking and bringing food everywhere we go.   How do you deal with food at restaurants? Do you just avoid them all together? Any suggestions of large restaurant chains that you have seen to be allergy friendly and trust them?

Thanks!