The going is slow this morning as I'm watching the run-up to the royal wedding before running out to school. A beautiful scene just as it was in 1978, but oh, how the world has changed.

Am I the last person to discover Hayashi, the Japanese/Korean restaurant in the strip just north of the intersection of 106 and 123. I had been patronizing the spot since it was a Thai restaurant, but had more or less given up on sushi. Just last month ECAT was supposed to do a restaurant shoot at El Mariachi when our signals got crossed up. My camera crew made arrangements to go to Hayasi and came back raving about the food. I've been in three times since and am also impressed. The first thing you need to know, if you have a fear of raw fish, is that you can get an elegant, tasty, and healthy meal without ever seeing a piece of sushi or sashimi. Yesterday I had the $10.95 lunch box of Bul-go-ki. Bu-go-ki is a version of the Korean marinaded beef dish. The meal includes miso soup, salad, rice, a Japanese dumpling, a piece of shumai, and three pieces of california roll (made with cooked imitation crab). The miso soup was worth the price of the meal. Too often miso soup is just a bowl of oversalted broth, but at Hayashi the soup includes small pieces of scallion, tofu and seaweed and the broth is complex with the overwhelming sensation of umami the savory fifth taste. The bul-go-ki is another star of the meal. Milder than the versions I've had in Korean restaurants, the thin slices of beef are meltingly tender with a rich brown sauce with a hint of sweetness. The dumpling, gyoza in Japanese, was like a small Peking ravoli while the shumai is a tiny noodle cup with a tasty shrimp paste cooked inside. Another dish I would recommend is the Spicy Dumpling Soup at $9.95, a large bowl with half a dozen dumplings in a spicy broth with egg drop and veggies. Noodle dishes are on the menu as well and the Shrimp Yaki Udon I had the other day was an excellent mix of thick udon noodles, five medium shrimp and vegetables. On one visit I tried a special side order of torched salmon-a sashimi set up where the fish is lightly seared on the outside and on a second visit I tried the spicy salmon maki. The maki is a six piece serving with larger chunks of fish than I have seen in many sushi establishments. Like the Bul-go-ki, however, the spiciness was muted, and unlike the meat dish this didn't work quite as well. The salmon in the maki was rich, but both the seared and raw salmon was a little bland-next time I'm going to try yellowtail. It has a little stronger flavor, and it is a relatively sustainable fishery according to the Sierra Club. The restaurant has a beer and wine license and serves a variety of saki as well. One drawback to Hayashi is its tiny size. It's restaurant seats under thirty with an additional half dozen seats at the sushi bar. If you are looking to be buried under a pile of food, then a Chinese restaurant is still your best choice. On the other hand, if you are looking for high quality ingredients prepared elegantly and are looking for an alternative to Loco at a lower cost, you can't go wrong at Hayashi.

I'm a devotee of the Eat This, Not That books by David Zinczenko and Matt Golding. These are the books that tell you what the healthy choices are at the chain restaurants across the country. Two of the latest in the series, available at Paperback Junction by the way, are The Eat This, Not That Diet (2011) and Cook This, Not That (2010). Both books have the busy, picture filled pages people have come to expect in the series-making them both fun books to dip into at random moments.  The cookbook gives you 350 calorie alternative recipes to some of people's favorite restaurant foods. Some recipes are seemingly no brainers like the recipe for a grilled chicken sandwich with chimichurri sauce. The recipe is a no brainer, but learning that it costs $1.81 a serving compared to a similar sandwich at Panera's at $7.09 is worth the price of admission. Learning that I'd save 680 calories and almost 2,000 mg. of sodium is a big bonus, and being diabetic learning that most of the savings in calories come from empty carbos helps make this my new favorite cookbook (despite my army of Cook's magazine books). Add bonus tips such as if you don't want to cook use store rotisserie chicken and a lesson on the technique of roasting peppers and you have a really valuable resource for healthy eating. The diet book is heavier on nutritional information and more of the famous comparisons of restaurant meals, but there are some great recipes as well. A recipe for a smoked salmon sandwich, another no brainer really, helps you save 250 calories over a salmon and cream cheese bagel from Dunkins. By the way, Dunkins comes in for praise in the book because it provides and clearly labels healthy breakfast fast foods (unlike the sugary doughnut, I just ate at a school fundraiser). And anyone who eats a Dunkin Doughnuts bagel instead of the low calorie and carbohydrate free (I'm taking both on faith like a belief in the Easter Bunny) at Back Bay Bagel deserves to get hyperglycemic and fat. Both books show us ways to eat healthier with little effort-why don't we do it?