The Skinny: Hong Kong Gourmet Buffet
By Wynter Holden
I know what you're thinking. A dieting column about going to a Chinese buffet? I must be crazy, especially after my abysmal failure at Chino Bandido a few weeks back. But that's exactly why I chose the dreaded Chinese buffet.
To serious dieters, the buffet restaurant is like committing seppuku with a pair of chopsticks -- because you'll inevitably blow your diet to hell the second you walk in and see fried doughnuts, sesame chicken and honey walnut shrimp piled in never ending steam trays.

Hong Kong Gourmet Buffet in Ahwatukee is one of the local "Grand Dames" of Chinese buffets. It's a bit pricier than standard buffets, but definitely worth the few extra bucks for the addition of low-cal seafood items like crab legs, chilled shrimp and sea bass (you have to ask for it the last one, but it's always available at dinnertime).
See, my view is this: As a dieter, you should never choose to go to a Chinese buffet. BUT, at some point, your friends or co-workers will invite you along and somehow you'll have to survive without pigging out on hybridized Chino-American fried foodstuffs.
















Since I don't count grocery-store-bought California rolls as "real" sushi, I was technically a sushi virgin. Rice, vinegar and fish sounds super-healthy and low in calories, but you actually have to be careful with what roll you choose. Miss A recommended the tempura roll, but as far as I'm concerned, "tempura" must translate to "unhealthy and fattening" in Japanese.

The Tea Shoppe, 7005 N 58th Ave. in Glendale, is a quaint little eatery slash kitschy tea house; the kind of place Red Hat Society biddies drink Earl Grey and brag about their grandchildren. I sat alone at a tiny farmhouse table for two covered with a thick, faux lace tablecloth. Armed with camera and notebook, I was ready to test my first 'creative dieting' theory: It's hard to pig out when you're forced to be dainty.