Before a dining companion can sip her cocktail, a Pomegranate Love Child, Jason Perlow snaps a photo.

"It's going to be completely obnoxious. I'm warning you in advance," says Perlow of his insistent photo-taking.

But that's what you get when you dine with a food blogger: not a sip or a bite until the dish or drink is documented. Perlow, 38, of New Jersey, is a former co-founder of the online food discussion board, eGullet, and author of a food blog called Off The Broiler (offthebroiler.wordpress.com). For the next three months, Perlow is working as a computer consultant, aka his day job, at Duke University and will blog about the Triangle's dining scene.

"I'm sort of on a voyage of discovery in the Triangle," Perlow says.

A couple of weeks ago, I joined Perlow for dinner at Jujube, a modern Asian restaurant in Chapel Hill. Perlow's aim in the Triangle, what he calls "the Silicon Valley of the South," is not to highlight the expected, the paper-napkin barbecue joints or the meat-and-threes, but rather the unexpected, Indian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese. (Although Perlow did make an exception for The Pit, the latest venture of Wilson pitmaster Ed Mitchell, whom Perlow had met at The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party. "Ed Mitchell is the Bentley of barbecue," he explains.)

Regardless of his blog's focus on the local ethnic offerings, Perlow can't escape Southern food while living here, which presents a problem. In October, a doctor told Perlow, who at the time weighed more than 400 pounds, that he was diabetic and had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Change was in order for this founding member of what The New York Times dubbed "The Fat Pack," a group of zealous online food enthusiasts for whom no food was too fatty.

So far, Perlow has lost about 60 pounds by strictly controlling what he eats for breakfast (egg-white omelet with vegan sausage and lots of vegetables) and lunch (a wrap of vegetables and chicken). At dinner, when he explores the restaurants, he stays away from carbs, although his diet is far from Atkins. "Obviously, coming to the South is a challenge because Southern cuisine is heavily influenced by pork fat," Perlow says.

As he looks over the Jujube's menu, Perlow rejects the specials, which on Wednesdays are all carb-heavy Italian. He opts for steamed shrimp pate on sugarcane skewers, which the chef says will photograph well, steamed black mussels with Sichuan bean sauce and scallions and lemon grass grilled hanger steak with cucumber salad and spicy peanut sauce.

"In my previous lifetime, I would probably be sitting at the bar doing the degustation menu," Perlow says, referring to Jujube's 20-course tasting menu on Tuesday nights for $60 per person. (Perlow claims to have eaten the longest degustation menu at the famous Alinea Restaurant in Chicago -- 30-plus courses that took five hours. "I wouldn't do that again," he says.)

After what he calls his "come to Jesus" meeting with the doctor last fall, Perlow considered shutting down his blog. But then he decided that he could continue in a different way. "There was no reason why I couldn't continue to do the same obsessive approach to cooking and dining from a healthier standpoint," he says. "... There's no reason why I can't enjoy myself without setting myself toward the path of destruction."

Without taking more than a small taste of a chocolate-coconut pie, Perlow, armed with his digital recorder, retires to the patio with Jujube chef-owner Charlie Deal for an interview.