SkinnyLicious® Small Plates & Appetizers

37 grams of fat. In a bowl of cucumbers.

It sits in the SkinnyLicious section, and that's my objection. Everything about the framing says light, while the sesame oil and soy dressing carries 1,850 mg of sodium, roughly four-fifths of a day. You get 2 grams of protein for 470 calories.

It tastes good, and I'd order it.

Just order it knowing what it is, a sharp cold counterweight to something rich. Better still, make it at home with scored cucumber, sesame oil, soy, garlic and chilli. Salt the cucumber for 20 minutes and drain it first, or it waters the dressing down within the hour.

12 grams of fat, the least of all 26 appetizers. The salt runs the other way: 2,550 mg, fifth-highest in the section, in a starter of only 380 calories.

Potstickers take their name from the Chinese guotie, literally "pot stick", because the dumplings are fried in a pan until their bases stick and brown, then steamed with a splash of water so the tops stay soft.

Soy sauce is the likeliest source of that sodium, so dip lightly. No milk is listed. 27 grams of protein.

16 grams of protein and 25 grams of fat. In its SkinnyLicious small-plates section, that's the most protein and the least fat.

Four crisp corn tortillas are rolled around chicken, green chiles, roasted corn and cheese, and they're served with avocado cream, guacamole and salsa verde.

Corn tortillas aside, gluten and wheat both appear in the allergen list. So do milk and soy. At 420 calories and 1,000 mg of sodium, it's the first thing I'd order from that section.

Fried crab and cream cheese parcels at 550 calories, and honestly one of the more sensible things in the appetizer section. Nothing here is light, but this is a long way from the Buffalo Blasts. The filling is cream cheese first and crab second, which is how these are made everywhere and worth knowing if you're expecting a crab cake in pastry. Shellfish is listed, along with gluten, wheat, milk and soy.

34 grams of fat, 14 grams of protein, 1,050 mg of sodium. Order them hot and eat them immediately — the wrapper goes leathery within a few minutes, and reheated wontons are never worth it.

It sits on the SkinnyLicious small plates list at 570 calories, the heaviest dish in that section, and 46 grams of fat, also the most there.

Bacon and a maple-butter glaze are why. Roasted sprouts and crispy leaves get tossed in both. The leaves are the best part.

410 mg of sodium, the lowest of the six small plates. Gluten and milk are listed, and no pork allergen, despite the bacon.

410 calories. Only the Soup of the Day and the Chicken Pot Stickers come in lighter among the appetizers, so if you want a starter that doesn't wreck the main course, this is one of three. Small crab cakes pan-crisped and served with a mustard dipping sauce. The mustard is doing real work, cutting through the fried crust.

Both fish and shellfish are listed, plus gluten, wheat, milk and egg. 600 mg of sodium.

460 calories. Among the appetizers, only the Soup of the Day and the Chicken Pot Stickers are lighter.

The tuna is raw, marked by the asterisk, and it sits on rice cakes that are pressed and seared until the outside crisps while the middle stays soft.

Pickled ginger and scallion go on top. Fish, soy, sesame, egg, gluten and wheat are listed. It's a sensible starter before a heavy main, with 1,490 mg of sodium.

42 grams of fat in a 510-calorie dish, which works out to about 74% of the calories coming from fat. That's the fontina, the parmesan and the white wine butter the mushrooms bake in. It's also one of the gentlest plates on the menu for salt at 500 mg, and it's vegetarian with only 19 grams of carbohydrate.

Mushrooms release a lot of water as they cook. Baking them slowly lets that liquid reduce back into the butter sauce rather than pooling on the plate, and it's the reason the sauce tastes of mushroom and not just of garlic.