Live to Eat, Eat to Live

Butter, salt, cream.

These are the things that make dining out so much more pleasurable than eating in (that, and not having to do the dishes), right? The promise of romantic candlelight, solicitous service and a big pile of saturated fat are what kept us coming back to our favorite restaurants all these years.

Most chefs and restaurateurs these days are sensitive to customers' health concerns, often eschewing heavy sauces and mantles of cheese in favor of broth-based sauces and herbal infusions. Still, in my experience, there are smart—and dumb—ways to approach eating out.

• Rip a page out of the Weight Watchers' manual by asking for sauces and salad dressings on the side; dip a bite in just enough to add "oomph."
• Shoot for grilled items or braised dishes (despite their perceived richness, lean cuts of meat are slowly cooked with stock and vegetables to add tenderness and flavor).
• Remember, just because it's a vegetable, it doesn't signal automatic virtue: gratins, mashed potatoes and frittatas are fat havens.
• And the cardinal rule of healthful restaurant dining is, don't be afraid to ask your server to describe how a dish is prepared. "Crispy" and "golden" are obvious code words for fried, but there are lots of tricky menu euphemisms that your waiter can help decode.

What are your tips for healthful dining out?