• Go for soups, especially lentil, split pea, and other bean and vegetable soups; fish, salad, potatoes, vegetables; fowl on occasion; rye toast, turkey sandwiches if you wish. Take it easy with tuna and egg salads and the like, which generally contain a lot of commercial mayonnaise.
• Whenever possible, eat in natural-foods restaurants and have some whole grain, such as brown rice, kasha, or millet. Even there, keep it simple: There is a lack of classical techniques in natural-foods cooking that allows chefs a tremendous freedom in creating new dishes. Some of those are delicious. Others can turn out to be very peculiar concoctions; when in doubt, you’ re better off with the simpler selections.
• In ethnic restaurants, you have a variety of choices. From a Japanese menu, choose sushi if you like it; also the spinach( oshitashi); rice-cucumber rolls( kappamaki); cold or hot tofu appetizers; miso soup; casseroles, such as the yosenabe( fish and vegetables in broth); soba( buckwheat) noodles with or without the deep-fried tempura( avoid the latter if you are concerned about fat intake). Teriyaki dishes are usually very salty; take it easy also with the soy sauce as a general condiment.
• In Chinese restaurants, mixed vegetables, noodles, scallops, fresh fish( shrimp are almost always frozen in this country), chicken with broccoli, and similar dishes are among your better choices. You may want to request reduced salt, soy sauce, and oil in the cooking and no MSG.( You can have your request honored because Chinese dishes are generally cooked to order, with the exception of soup, dumplings, egg rolls, and similar preparations.) If possible, avoid the egg foo young, probably one of the oiliest dishes ever invented— your liver will be grateful. You can get a fair number of vegetarian dishes in both Chinese and Japanese restaurants; however, they all use polished white rice, so the nutrient content is off balance and lower than desirable. For that reason, these meals are really better balanced if you have a small amount of animal protein with them; that is also the traditional dietary system, and heeding it is a good idea. If you can find an Oriental restaurant that serves unpolished brown rice, then of course a vegetarian meal would be an excellent nutritional choice.
• Make sure to order dal in Indian restaurants; it will complement the abundance of vegetarian dishes and white rice with important vegetable protein from the beans. The Hindu cuisine is probably one of the best balanced for vegetarians, even though it does use polished rice; when brown rice is used, you will be fully satisfied with an Indian meal. You may just want to be a bit cautious with overly pungent( hot) dishes and also with the fried breads, although perhaps the light and crisp pappadum is a treat worth sinning with.
• Mexican, Brazilian, and other Latin American( except Argentine) restaurants generally offer delicious rice( white) or corn and bean dishes; they may be a bit overspiced sometimes. With some vegetable soup and salad, you can put together a reasonably satisfying meal.
• Italian restaurants have great soups, such as minestrone, pasta e fagioli, and escarole in brodo. One of the more interesting Italian dishes is bolito misto, a huge plate of blanched or steamed fresh vegetables with a piece of boiled chicken on top; unfortunately, not many restaurants serve it. The pastas are usually made from white semolina flour; some enlightened restaurants are now offering whole wheat pasta, but that needs longer cooking, and sometimes doesn’ t get it. Go for pasta primavera, a fine dish if it isn’ t smothered in cheese. On the whole, pasta dishes with white clam sauce or pesto are easier on your system than canned tomato sauce and melted cheeses. You may also find sautéed fresh zucchini, broccoli, or escarole, but these are often drowned in oil.( Curiously enough, I find overly oily dishes much more troublesome to digest than those with an excess of butter, even though that flies in the face of conventional nutritional wisdom. You can test it out for yourself too— and listen to your body’ s feedback rather than anyone’ s theories.)
• Speaking of butter, in French restaurants you can guiltlessly go for poached fish, potatoes, vegetables, and salad. If you’ re being super-cautious you can ask them to hold the butter sauce, and if you’ re hedonistic, you can have it served on the side and enjoy it in moderation. Many good restaurants will, upon request, prepare a steamed or sautéed vegetable platter; the better the restaurant, the more wonderful such a platter will be, so don’ t hesitate to ask. In fact, not only restaurants will do that, as I found a good four years ago, when I went to a wedding in a church in New Jersey; the meal was catered and took place in the church dining room. The entrée was a sixteen-ounce T-bone steak with potatoes and carrots. I asked the waiter to bring me two servings of vegetables and give my steak to someone else, thinking it would be a fairly simple thing to do. Well, everybody got served except me, and I was beginning to feel ostracized and disdained by the meat-eating world … and then the waiter showed up with a cornucopia of gorgeous, lightly steamed carrots, zucchini, green beans, cauliflower, and broccoli, placing it in front of me. The kitchen had actually gone to the trouble of preparing them without advance notice, even in the midst of serving over a hundred dinners. My table companions were amazed, and also a little envious— I certainly had the most beautiful plate! Fortunately there was enough to share among us, so we all enjoyed it together. I think it’ s safe to say that health consciousness is now so prevalent in our society that hardly anyone will look askance if you order vegetables and low-fat dishes and avoid the steak and martinis. In fact, when dining is a social occasion, it’ s a good idea to avoid talking about food, unless it is to comment on its delights. Neither defend nor apologize for your dietary choices, whatever they are; if you do, you will only be expressing unnecessary guilt feelings. You have a right to eat whatever you please, be it vegetarian, standard American,“ nouvelle cuisine,” macrobiotic, junk food, or last