I used to fear the Green Bowl, 131 W. Beaver Ave., and for good reasons.

The Green Bowl is an all-you-can-eat, design-your-own-stir-fry bar.

Anxiety #1: I can't even design a cheese sandwich. Anxiety #2: When tempted, I can eat. A lot.

But after many Green Bowl adventures, my fears have vanished. I am now a competent stir-fry chef who has discovered just how many bowls I must eat to satisfy my hunger for all things stirred and fried.

"Yes, we know our bowls are not green," reads a poster that hangs inside the Green Bowl. Though the bowls are ceramic and white, there are enough green objects in the restaurant to warrant its name.

Walls painted in shades of celery and spinach rim a scuffed hardwood floor, which is packed with small tables and surprisingly comfortable wooden chairs. In the center of each table is a bouquet of green bamboo stalks.

But the portion of the Green Bowl that boasts the most green is the bar.

This is where you grab a bowl, drop in a popsicle stick labeled with your table number and pile on the veggies.

This vegetable bar is nothing like the one in your local dining commons.

Combine over 20 types of veggies and several varieties of fruit in your spacious bowl, then top off your concoction with one or more of 21 sauces.

Lunches and dinners, limited only by your hunger, are $6.99 and $8.99, respectively.

Following is a very, very condensed list of stir-fry making ingredients that may get you thinking about some delicious masterpiece meals of your own: spinach, broccoli, bok choy, squash, mini corn, sprouts, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, peas, mandarin oranges, rice noodles, peanuts and tomatoes.

The exciting sauce selection epitomizes the Green Bowls's Asian flavor, but offers some cultural taste alternatives as well.

Asian flavor favorites like teriyaki, sweet and sour, peanut and Thai make appearances. Variations on those standards, like Bombay mango and ginger soy, sass up the assortment.

Fajita, honey hickory, hot chili and Italian grill are available for diners looking for a different kind of stir-fry.

Designate your choice of meat with a yellow, blue or red stick, which represent chicken, shrimp, or beef, respectively.

For us vegetarians, the Green Bowl offers plenty of nice, firm protein-rich tofu.

Although the Green Bowl is a fantastic eatery for vegetarians, the stricter among us may want to avoid it. Meaty and non-meaty stir-fries are cooked on the same grill and I have panicked once or twice over a speck of meat in my supposedly vegetarian meal.

Once you have completed your creation, drop it off on the cook's counter and after it is good and fried, your waiter or waitress will return it to your table and your eager tummy.

My advice is to follow the restaurant's suggestions on the number of scoops of sauce to use and to avoid combining Asian and non-Asian sauces.

Also, don't dump in any fruit unless you're planning on drizzling your meal with a sweet sauce -- pineapple and hot teriyaki sauce do not go down without a fight.

The good news is that if your first attempt is a total failure, you can simply return to the bar and take another try.

To begin your meal, select a spicy or salty bowl, then continue with a sweet combination for a dessert stir-fry. I'm prone to starting with a hot teriyaki/soy stir-fry filled with lots of tofu and broccoli. I round off my meal with my specialty, the Bombay mango/peanut sauce fry stuffed with pineapple chunks, mandarin oranges and cellophane noodles.

There is no drink menu, but your waiter or waitress will list them if you ask.

The Green Bowl's drinks are standard sodas, teas and coffee, which go for $1.25 each.

Enjoy your meal with either white or brown rice, both of which are of the sticky variety that is easy to eat with the proffered chopsticks.

Make an extra trip to the bar and ladle some sauces onto your rice to give it an added kick.

Though I have long since mastered the art of stir-fry-making, I do still have cautious fears about the all-you-can-eat aspect of the Green Bowl.

Stir-fries are like potato chips -- you can't eat just one.