Western Massachusetts

OK, so it's January and it's time for the traditional New Year's resolutions. High on most people’s lists are exercise and eating better, especially after the food fest of the holiday season. For me, that points to Asian cuisines, which tend to be good about a high vegetable diet. 

I am, perhaps, not the best person to provide any dietary advice. My greatest food accomplishment for 2013 is avoiding fast food completely for the last six months of the year. Add to that a vague sense of what actually constitutes healthy eating and you’ll know I am no vegan locavore. However, I find myself wanting to eat better despite my love of all things cholesterol and so the search for healthier choices begins.

First, there is the venerable Paul and Elizabeth's Restaurant in Thorne’s Marketplace in Northampton. Ascend a circular staircase from Herrell's Ice Cream (a metaphor in itself), Paul and Elizabeth, the real people behind the restaurant, have been serving seafood and vegetarian dishes seemingly forever (but really it’s been 35 years).  A warm, comfortable restaurant with similarly comfortable food, Paul and Elizabeth’s is the go-to spot for a clean, tasty, and well-cooked meal. And, if your inner glutton requires it, Herrell's is just downstairs.

Bela is exclusively a vegetarian restaurant in Northampton. It is more informal than P & E’s, and is pretty well thought of by my vegetarian friends. It's a place I've always meant to eat at but indolence and sloth seem to get in the way. It is just next door to Mosaic where I have eaten often. Mosaic is a Mediterranean-style café that offers a wealth of dishes that will satisfy your craving for vegetables as well as flavor. Get the mint tea while you are at it.

Noodles, on Main Street across from the Academy of Music, offers a range of pho and noodle soups along with salads. You can get a variety of proteins, from tofu through seafood, pork and beef, and a range of noodles. Somehow, I don't think of pho as high carb, and the soups taste nourishing as well as good.

In Amherst, there are Fresh Side, Miss Saigon, and Oriental Flavor. Fresh Side advertises as "pan-Asian." I am partial to the soups and the tea rolls (especially the Vietnamese ones). Miss Saigon offers a full range of pho, noodle, and Vietnamese stir-fry dishes. It's another place of which I am very fond. Oriental Flavor is a new place downtown that serves dim sum and some related dishes for lunch and dinner (and breakfast on the weekends). I've eaten there and liked it. I miss the rolling carts of the urban dim sum restaurants, but the place is definitely a must-try. (Great Wall, in Florence, has dim sum on rolling carts 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.on the weekends in addition to above average Cantonese. Check the gourmet menu while you are there.)

And speaking of Florence, Café Evolution, is a pure vegan restaurant just a hop skip and a jump away from downtown Northampton. Very home style soups and salads and a lot of random couches and tables for a leisurely eat and talk afternoon.

Don Lesser has lived, eaten, and worked in Hampshire Country for 30 very odd years. He blogs about the local scene at russelnod.com.