Frugal gourmet.

• Author: Bailey, David
• Position: Sunset Cafe, Greensboro, North Carolina - Expense-Account Dining

It was in March 1988 that readers of this column were introduced to my cousin Reid -- a bachelor at that time and in the midst of launching a career as a financial adviser.

We'd donned our gray suits, mine just purchased for my new job as a business editor, and headed for Greensboro's finest, The Nicholas (now Robert's). As a white-coated waiter served up a rich galantine of chicken, pheasant, goose and duck, we guzzled chablis and enjoyed what neither of us had ever had before -- a generous expense account.

We bar-hopped that night -- on assignment, of course -- checking out spots where BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA readers could wine and dine clients during the ACC Tournament to be played at the Greensboro Coliseum. It was a long night, and the magazine was several C-notes lighter by the time I returned to Charlotte, but nobody blinked. After all, I had a job to do.

Ah, the '80s.

Now, five years later, Reid and I were sitting around a table, eyeing our alfalfa sprouts and nursing non-alcoholic beers. What a difference half a decade makes. Reid has married, returned to library work and given up drinking. We're both on low-cholesterol diets, and like a lot of others, I'm watching not just my waistline but my expense account.

Ah, the '90s.

Welcome to the age of less is better. And I can't think of a finer place to toast its arrival than the Sunset Cafe. Begun in 1976 as a counterculture spot catering to what my mother would have called bohemians, the Sunset moved into much larger and slightly fancier digs out on West Market Street near Guilford Mills in 1989. It has become a place where ties and the tie-dyed mingle. The common attraction is good food at bargain prices, an attentive wait staff and a relaxed atmosphere.

Reid and his wife, Amy, and my wife, Anne, and I clustered around one of the two blackboards that are the Sunset's only menus. What was offered were several chicken dishes, lamb, a couple of cheese-and-vegetable casseroles and lots of seafood -- including curried scallops, a soft-shelled crab po' boy, cajun-grilled mackerel, smoked marlin and salmon baked with an almond crust -- all in the $8 to $13 range. No pork. No beef.

From the beginning, the Sunset has stressed wholesome foods. But it's never been a health-food restaurant, co-owner Larry Jacobs insists. "We have all the things people shouldn't eat," he admits, "but they're not in everything and are used sparingly." The cafe's philosophy is to take the best and freshest...