Everybody has a Sally. You know what I mean: a friend or relative who, like Meg Ryan’s character in When Harry Met Sally, doesn’t order a meal so much as orchestrate it, changing this, omitting that — no skin, egg whites only, dressing on the side — until the dish on the menu and the dish she (or he) receives have nothing in common but the fact that they’re both served on plates. You yourself may even be a Sally, which leaves you open to the obvious question: with all those restrictions, why bother going to a restaurant at all?

Luckily, the thoughtful weight-watcher has an opportunity to turn the question around, until it reads something like this: is total deprivation really the only alternative to utter abandon? Or is there room for compromise? Certainly there are places for it. Plenty of upscale restaurants out there offer dishes that are relatively healthy as is, that you really can order without substitutions and enjoy without guilt — better yet, without the nagging (and probably warranted) fear that you’re setting yourself up for a midnight fall off a cliff of chips and cookie dough. The following are just a few worthy examples.

Newly renovated and rather gorgeous, Turner Fisheries at Copley Plaza could inspire a dieter with its setting alone. What’s more, it boasts clients to match; and wherever the Botoxed and boutique-clad ladies-who-lunch go, the dieter may assuredly follow. As cool-blue hues suffuse the airy, spacious dining room, glinting with glass and chrome, so a light, clean sensibility permeates the menu. Beyond just specializing in seafood, it employs healthier cooking methods such as steaming, grilling, and roasting, and makes liberal use of exotic vegetables and drizzled broths (all the better to showcase the subtleties of seafood anyway). Thus, pan-seared striped bass ($28) basks in the earthly largesse of squash (both sonorous hubbard and the crisper chayote) and apples (vis-à-vis cider glaze). And grilled swordfish ($25) goes naked but for a sheer porcini-mushroom emulsion and a fig leaf of glazed salsify (a mild root vegetable). Elsewhere on the menu, thyme jus and butternut-squash broth, daikon, frisée, and cardamom all add sparkle without fat. But especially luxuriant and light is the bamboo-steamed combo of lobster, shrimp, swordfish, salmon, scallops, and mussels ($30), with one pungent dipping sauce per tier of seafood: papaya chutney, passion-fruit vinaigrette, and even wasabi cream (a dab or two of which will hardly undo the good of the dish as a whole, which also contains green-papaya slaw).

In contrast to the après-shopping-spree brasserie that is Turner, Abe & Louie’s is a classic business-lunch chophouse, all gleaming wood and hanging lamps, faux Renoirs, and deal-sealing handshakes — and, of course, enormous cuts of beef. Yet surprisingly, its menu can be an exercise in hope rather than futility for the health-conscious; after all, if you can survive a steak joint, you can negotiate any dietary minefield, and Abe & Louie’s makes the challenge a pleasant one. Above all, the steak-and-tomato luncheon salad ($14.95) will be a no-brainer for calorie-counting carnivores; in it, a moderate portion of red meat and crumbled blue cheese, combined with sweet onions and a punchy balsamic vinaigrette over romaine, strikes a balance between indulgence and integrity. At dinnertime, the tenderloin brochette over steamed basmati rice is likewise attractively downsized ($21.50). Meanwhile, if steak per se isn’t a priority, options abound, and not just in the usual bland form of grilled chicken breast or shrimp cocktail. Substance and satisfaction inhere in a pan-seared crab-cake appetizer ($11.95), for instance — no heavy, greasy patty but a generous, loose conglomeration of sweet, just-browned lump crabmeat and little else; and though a mere squirt of lemon does the trick dressing-wise, tropical fruit pico de gallo also provides a kick — rendering the tartar not only unnecessary but untempting. Then there’s Abe & Louie’s signature salad ($6.50/$8.95), another triumph of equilibrium as blue cheese and pistachios bring out the butteriness of Bibb lettuce (lots and lots of lettuce), while pan-fried apple slices add sweet-tart zing (as does the Dijon vinaigrette — a little of which goes a long way).

Of course, Boston’s brimming with upscale ethnic restaurants in which refinement isn’t synonymous with richness, nor flavor with fat — where, in other words, dieters enjoy greater freedom to discover new dishes and exotic flavors, to partake of elegance without excess. Take the Elephant Walk, where Cambodian and French cuisines have been dancing cheek-to-cheek for several years now. Of two locations near Kenmore and Porter Squares, the former is the fancier, with décor somewhat suggestive (for better or worse) of a plantation estate; the menu, however, is more sexy, spicy, and surprising than it is genteel. Particularly on the Cambodian side, there’s much to explore. Soups are thrillingly sour — consider somlah machou ($6.95), its shrimp-filled tomato-based broth sweet yet redolent with garlic and citrus. Others rely on equally sprightly aromatics such as lemongrass, basil, and mint. Salads, meanwhile, dare to mingle sundry ingredients to unique, dynamic effect: the salade fraîcheur au chair de crabe ($9.95) owes its grassy, complex, bright-to-bursting character to the combination of fresh crab, grapefruit, and musky seaweed sprinkled with pine nuts and lime juice (among other things), while the more traditional salade cambodgienne ($6.95) is essentially coleslaw extraordinaire, made up of shredded chicken, peanuts, and tuk trey (an addictive, sweet-salty dressing). As for entrées, mee siem ($11.95) is a noodle dish that expertly juggles the many strong flavors — from soy, garlic, and chilies to marinated tofu and sweet omelet strips — that rush in where butter and cheese fear to tread. But if, in the end, it’s French food that floats your boat, you can at least take care not to sink it forthwith. For one thing, the favored preparations here are grilling, searing, and braising, all of which require relatively modest amounts of fat; for another, a number of the heavier dishes — such as lamb chops and bavette steak, both grilled with wild mushrooms — come in half-portions (not to mention half-prices).

Not far away in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner stands the more-casual but no-less-stylish Thai bistro Khao Sarn. Not quite a year old, it has already attracted much attention for a menu that is broadening the horizon of Thai food in Boston (that is, extending it northward). But weight-watchers have another reason to herald the place: namely, it offers a wide array of dishes that are no less exciting for being nutritious (more successful in that regard than neighboring bistro Lucy’s, which has yet to meet its stated goal of reconciling less fat with more fun). Take miang kum ($6.95), an appetizer in which a tiny but intensely flavorful mound of ingredients — including toasted coconut, dried shrimp, and fresh ginger — is placed in the center of spinach leaves, which you roll up, dip in a powerfully sweet sauce, and pop in your mouth one by one. Or take any of a number of house specialties riding on the strengths of lemon and lime, ginger and garlic, basil and mint, and, of course, chilies. Pla neung ma-now ($14.95) spikes steamed whole sea bass with a chunky green chili-lime salsa of sorts that scorches your mouth but somehow spares the flavor of the fish. Lemon scallops ($12.75), light and tangy with mushrooms and celery, stimulate your sour and salty receptors, and thus pair well with pla goong ($10.75), which trades in the sweet-and-spicy, as grilled shrimp roll around in chili sauce with red onions, tomatoes, lemon, mint, and more. In the end, Khao Sarn helps you forget about all the crispy fried so-and-sos you’re used to from lesser Thai restaurants.

Speaking of forgetting, Afghanistan may now be but a blip on President Bush’s malfunctioning radar screen, but Afghan cuisine, as it’s served in the warm, lively dining room of the Helmand, in Cambridge, is utterly memorable. Meaty even when, as it often is, vegetarian, Afghan food is the epitome of dietary compromise: hardly spa-worthy, to be sure, it nonetheless abounds in vitamin- and fiber-rich veggies and grains, and healthy fats tempered by herbs and spices; in short, it’s hard to go terribly wrong. The appetizer known as kaddo ($4.95), for instance, simultaneously satisfies carb cravings and sweet teeth as it combines pan-fried, baked, and sugared pumpkin with garlicky yogurt; it might precede an entrée like dolma, a profusion of vegetables including cauliflower, spinach, tomatoes, and corn, filling a shell of eggplant ($11.95). Another hearty yet healthful meal might pair a salad of potatoes and garbanzo beans dressed in a refreshing cilantro vinaigrette ($3.95) with aushak ($10.95), a stellar dish of tender "ravioli" teeming with green onions and two sauces — one desert-warm with yellow split peas and carrots, the other oasis-cool via the remarkable combination of yogurt, garlic, and mint. Fish and chicken also make appearances for the diner wishing to resist less diet-friendly lamb and beef specialties.

Finally, there’s Finale. Celebrated above all as a dessert place, it may not seem like a dieter’s dream (more like a fantasy-cum-nightmare). But the beauty of Finale is its emphasis on balance and moderation — which, again, make far more loyal companions for the dieter than do denial and willpower. At the plush Harvard Square location, for instance, lunch items come in varying sizes and guises to give the diner more control: soups du jour are available by the cup as well as the bowl, sandwiches by the half as well as the whole; there’s even the "sandwich-as-salad," which dumps the bun for a mess of mesclun. And dinnertime at Finale means a selection of small dishes called "preludes," designed specifically to give you greater leeway come dessert — consider the arugula salad ($7.95) with pears, grilled onions, and a touch of prosciutto (lighter, by the way, than ham), or the Mediterranean pizza ($8.95), which toes the less-is-more line with fresh toppings and a shot of balsamic vinegar. So you can finally enjoy your peanut-butter cookie or cheesecake slice in peace.

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthiet@bu.edu