Traveling in Southeast Asia may sound like a dream for gluten-avoiders. All the rice! And rice noodles! But alas, there is one major stumbling block to GF dining: Soy sauce, made from wheat, in a travesty of inaccurate branding.

Sadly, many Asian dishes are cooked with soy sauce, and requesting tamari as a substitute is rarely an option. Some restaurants catering to Westerners will offer GF options, but if you want to try street food from hawker stalls, you will most likely get some gluten. Even plain rice noodles will be boiled in the same water used for wheat noodles.

I’m not Celiac, and I can have a bit of soy sauce with no dire consequences. I started making allowances on the plane from Seoul to Singapore. One of the meals offered was a Bibimbap bowl, one of the best airplane meals I’ve eaten. Did it contain soy sauce? Almost definitely. As did the bulgogi rice ball served as a snack, which I also ate.

Speaking of airplane food, I was vexed by my GF meals on both overseas flights. On the way over, I had meatballs with polenta, and on the way back, I had salmon with potatoes. The desserts were fruit, and the salads were a bit sad. But on both flights, the regular meal offerings included perfectly serviceable and totally different GF meal options—and ice cream.

Why don’t airlines ensure at least one meal is GF, rather than serving a separate dish for “special meals”? I’m inclined to wing it on future flights. I don’t have to worry too much about cross-contamination, so I may as well get the ice cream.

Singapore Fling

Singapore is cosmopolitan and expensive; you can find pretty much any type of food there. In an ironic twist, our first meal in the city was at Yardbird, an American Southern restaurant chain in the Marina Bay Sands complex. We landed there because it was walkable from the gardens and on the way to the subway. And we were hungry.

I ordered the smoked pork ribs marked GF on the menu, and they were some of the best ribs I’ve encountered. They were also possibly the messiest food I’ve eaten in public. I did terrible things to my fancy white napkin as we gazed over an Apple Store in a floating glass dome on the bay.

We were jet lagged that first day and after a dip in the pool, I opted for the Haianese chicken from the room service menu. It came with a trio of sauces; at least one contained soy sauce. The chicken was fairly bland on its own, but the rice filled me up before I dozed off way too early.

We did not buy the $48 per person hotel breakfast, so we explored nearby options each day. On our first day in Singapore, we went to the first Starbucks in Singapore, just a few blocks from our hotel. I discovered that Starbucks in Asia does not carry my familiar GF food items, and even the yogurt parfait is marked “not gluten-free.” I satisfied myself with an iced matcha latte.

We had a pretty mediocre breakfast on day two at a cafe on Orchard Road, but at least they had an omelet for me and another iced matcha latte. On our last day in Singapore, we tracked down Oatberry in one of the many Orchard Road shopping centers, where I had a delicious GF matcha waffle with strawberries and coconut ice cream.

We kept our dinner options close to the hotel as we struggled to stay awake until 7 p.m. The hotel restaurant Mosella was a sort of Aztec-Mediterranean mash-up with a chef from San Sebastián. They had well-marked gluten-free options; mine were grilled calamari and beef tenderloin with potatoes. I did have a bite of my husband’s very not-GF dessert, which was like a giant Oreo stuffed with chocolate mousse and caramel.

Our final meal in Singapore was at Merci Marcel—a highly-rated tropical French place near our hotel. Their menu only had a couple of GF options, but I was satisfied with my duck parmentier, frites, and a creme brûlée for dessert.

I always go into travel with high hopes for culinary experiences, but I find it often boils down to what’s nearby and not totally wheat-based. We had some mall sushi at Suntech City that was just fine and a satisfying paper dish of nachos in a mall food court. Sadly, we never made it to the famed hawker stalls in Singapore, and even if we had, I doubt I would have found much to eat.

Gone Amok in Cambodia

We stopped at the regional airport near Bangkok to reach our next destination, Siem Reap. I was set on getting some Pad Thai in Thailand; soy sauce be damned!

The airport was small, and the food options were limited. The sit-down restaurants were packed, so we tried the food court. I spotted a Chinese stall with glistening roast ducks, and I got a duck combo while my husband sought the familiar comfort of the McDonald’s kiosk. The duck was tender and flavorful, and the soup was a delightful umami broth. Soy sauce was likely involved.

After an hour’s drive from the airport outside Siem Reap, we settled into our bougie, temple-themed luxury boutique hotel. We were a few blocks from the famous Pub Street, but I still wanted some Pad Thai.

A Thai and Khmer restaurant called Sambo on the other side of the river got high ratings, according to TripAdvisor. We set out on foot and started figuring out how to cross streets through floods of mopeds and tuk-tuks. I defied my craving and ordered Pad Si Ew, which was tasty and almost surely cooked with soy sauce.

Our hotel offered an extensive breakfast buffet. I took the opportunity to embrace “weird breakfasts,” including fried rice, cold cuts, yogurt, bacon, and unfamiliar fruits. With the egg station, getting a healthy GF breakfast would be easy enough, but I preferred to assemble a plate of odd snacks.

The next day, we spent time on Pub Street, people-watching and enjoying cheap drinks. For lunch, I ended up with “the best pork ribs” in Siem Reap; though they fell short of my bougie Yardbird meal, they were satisfying and cheap. We went to Paper Tiger for dinner, and I finally got some excellent Pad Thai. I noticed a couple of tourist-oriented signs claiming Gluten-free options.

I wanted to try some traditional Khmer dishes, and we found a place on Pub Street with Beef Lok Lak for me and an Ostrich Burger for my husband. On our group tour of the temple complex, our bus stopped at a Khmer restaurant, where I tried the local noodles with beef. They were rice noodles, but most likely cooked with soy sauce.

Fisk Amok is a green coconut curry made with catfish from the nearby lake. I had a beautifully flavorful bowl served in a bowl made from banana leaves. The restaurant Christa had genuinely insane stairs (ladders, really) to climb to the roof deck where we could watch tourists wander toward the market by the river, or toward Pub Street in the warm evening air.

We made reservations at a fancy riverside restaurant for our final meal in Siem Reap, where we were escorted into a closed-off and air-conditioned room at the back. It would have been better to people-watching in the open-air dining room, but I was tired of sweating. The food was French fusion with local delicacies like pounded chicken with red ants.

Though they didn’t have marked GF options, there were plenty of entrees, salads, and appetizers with no obvious wheat or grains. We shared a local steak, local chicken, and a local dessert involving coconut milk and bananas.

Hanoi Food Culture

I came to Vietnam with a well-established fondness for their cuisine. Seattle has plenty of Pho and Bahn Mi spots, and they have been in my regular rotation for close to twenty years. Bahn Mi was one of the foods I was saddest about ruling out when I went GF.

Hanoi was not as hot as Singapore and Siem Reap, but it was still too warm for soup, so we never did get a bowl of Pho. Our tour guide on our Ha Long Bay tour gave a lesson during the long bus ride on the different ways to pronounce Pho depending on the accents. One means noodle soup, one means street, and one means prostitute. He implored us not to try to order a bowl of prostitutes.

The food on the boat tour was marginally awful. It was traditional Vietnamese food, but everything was boiled and flavorless. We sat with a German family who spoke French amongst themselves because they lived in Alsace, and the dad was French-Canadian. We all politely picked at our lunches.

The Peridot Luxury Boutique Hotel geared its dining options toward Westerners who eat gluten. On our first night, we tried their “fine dining” restaurant with a view of the infinity pool overlooking the city. I had a perfectly serviceable pork chop, but that was the only entree that didn’t involve bread or pasta.

The rooftop bar offered…burgers, crepes, a croque monsieur, and French fries. So I ate a lot of fries while we enjoyed cocktails and 360-degree views. I also ate a whole plate of cheese for dinner one evening.

The buffet breakfast was even larger and more random than the one we’d had in Siem Reap. I piled my plate with sushi, garbanzo salad, fried rice, bacon, and tropical fruit. I had fully embraced breakfast chaos.

On our first day in Hanoi, my husband wanted Bahn Mi for lunch, and I insisted we find a place that served noodle salad so I could eat, too. We found a hipster establishment that served (but was out of) kombucha on tap. I’d had Bun before in Seattle, but this huge bowl was at a different level. The beef was tangy, and the vinegar dressing was light and just a little bit sweet. The veggies were fresh and crunchy, with plenty of fresh herbs.

We sat on low camping chairs on their patio. Most restaurants had outdoor seating that looked designed for a kindergarten. People in Vietnam eat low to the ground, and even very old people have no trouble getting into and out of a low squat.

I had another excellent bowl of Bun Cha at a sports bar with a nice (grown-up-sized) outdoor seating area on a busy alleyway in the old town. It was a great spot for people-watching old ladies on mopeds and Instagrammers taking selfies. My noodles came with four different cuts of sizzling pork. In terms of GF options, it was noodles or nachos.

Hanoi Food Culture was the venue of our final dinner in Vietnam. They advertised gluten-free-friendly options, but I ordered recklessly, even eating a fried spring roll because it looked delicious, and I knew it wouldn’t kill me. The ingredients were fresh, and a lychee martini was a refreshing complement to a spicy roast chicken dish. Unlike the lunch on our boat tour, this authentic food was delicious.

Korean meats and Kim Chi

One night in Seoul. There’s no song about that, but that’s what we got on our way back to Seattle. My husband chose a hotel in a lively central neighborhood more than an hour from the airport. It didn’t take an hour on the way in, though, because our taxi driver was in a race. Our average highway speed was 140 kmph.

It was chilly in Seoul after two weeks in the sweltering subtropics. We had to put on every layer we packed to go out and find something to eat near our hotel. Thankfully there was a Korean BBQ spot right around the corner.

I had never done the Korean BBQ thing before, thought it is popular in Seattle. If I’m honest, Korean food is not among my favorites. They lean into sour and hot, with Kim Chi on everything. I don’t love Kim Chi, but I tolerate it.

We settled in for a set meal, with little dishes of pickled things, sweet potatoes, and lettuce leaves scattered over the surface of the table not occupied by the hot coals in the center of the table. It was so cold outside that the intense heat was kind of nice. Our table chef didn’t try to make chit-chat; he just silently grilled four different cuts of beef in bite-sized portions. I concocted elaborate lettuce wraps and eclectic mouthfuls. I even ate the Kim Chi and enjoyed it.

The next day, we had hours to wander around. After a morning foray to the contemporary art museum, we walked through the shopping streets near our hotel, looking for a lunch spot. It was Sunday, and a lot of weekday lunch venues were closed. The Korean spots we passed seemed to elaborate for a quick lunch, with more table-side cooking and multi-course meals. We wanted something simple.

My husband eventually bought a corn dog from a street vendor. I was still hoping for a place to sit down out of the cold, so I just had a bite of his delicious, greasy meat on a stick. Can corn dogs be gluten-free? Yes! Was this one? Highly doubtful.

We finally found a place to sit inside out of the cold rain at a little wine bistro across from our hotel. We shared an order of cheesy fries served with tiny forks. Not exactly a nutritious lunch, but it was satisfying and gluten-free.

Our final meal in Asia came courtesy of the buffet at the airport lounge. More corndogs may have been involved—and definitely not gluten-free fried spring rolls. Oh well.

Overall, I’d say I was about 75% successful at avoiding gluten, but I didn’t try very hard. For those with celiac, you can find translated cards online to show restaurant staff, and many places will accommodate. But good luck avoiding the soy sauce.