Best salad bar

You've got your greens: romaine, mesclun, spinach. You've got your veggies: peppers and carrots and cucumbers and tomatoes and onions, beets and sprouts and squash and corn and peas. You've got your prepared salads: pasta and black bean, lentil and bulgur. You've got hard-boiled eggs and sweet-potato chunks. And toppings: soy-bacon bits and soy nuts, Sicilian olives, roasted garlic cloves, grated parmesan, crumbled feta, raisins, and, of course, croutons. And, finally, you've got six or seven dressings. That's the carefully tended Whole Foods salad bar in a nutshell -- or, rather, in a salad bar.

It's as though some cosmic food pyramid hung in the balance: where the former offers more diverse veggies and grains, Souper Salad's bar stocks up on fruit and protein. Here, in addition to the standard veggies, you'll find tuna and turkey and cottage cheese, tofu and cheddar and sunflower seeds, as well as fresh melon, apple, pineapple, and grapes. Guiltier pleasures like cheese-tortellini salad, potato salad, and wonton strips, meanwhile, may lower the bar on health but raise the one on instant gratification -- a little of which, after all, never hurt anybody.

Whole Foods, various locations. Souper Salad, various locations.