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Harvard Square

Mr. & Mrs. Bartley's Burger Cottage

[expensive, but worth it, fresh meat ground on site as required; lime rickeys, real french fried potatoes and onion rings]
1246 Mass Ave
Recommended by MLO ***

Bartley's Burger Cottage is a Cambridge tradition. It's a hole-in-the-wall, crowded, student sort of place with a huge variety (40? 60? 80? different kinds) of hamburgers. There is other food available, but you go there for a hamburger. Bartley's is not your standard, assembly-line hamburger shop -- it's a one-of-a-kind. No reservations, of course.

Bertucci's

[pizza & Italian]
21 Brattle (Harvard Square)
799 Main (between Central Sq and MIT)
Recommended by MLO ***

Bertucci's is a very high-end pizza and general Italian restaurant. (It's not gourmet Italian; it's gourmet pizza.) Excellent food, reasonable prices, great bread, usually crowded. It's a Boston-area chain with probably a dozen restaurants total. This location is smaller than the Bertucci's in Central Square.

Café Bombay

[Indian]
to be done [in the Galleria]. Buffet

Café Sushi

[Japanese]
1105 Mass Ave (halfway between Harvard and Central Squares)
492-0434
Recommended by MLO ***

Café Sushi is a mostly-sushi restaurant which is a favorite place for many local software developers. (I can't speak to the quality of the bait sold there myself, but many of my colleagues like it a lot.) Entrees are in the $12-$18 range.

Delhi Darbar

[Indian]
to be done: Holyoke Center. Not as good as Café Bombay.

Dolphin Seafood

[seafood]
1105 Mass Ave. (upper deck of two-level shop frontage)
Recommended by CJH ***

Not as inventive or high quality as Legal, but substantially cheaper and less crowded (and closer to the Smofcon hotel).

Harvest

[international gourmet]
44 Brattle St.
617-868-2255
Recommended by MLO ****

I haven't eaten at the Harvest in a few years -- the salesman who used to take customers and the occasional engineer there is long departed -- but it used to be and probably still is one of the better restaurants in Harvard Square. Reservations required.

Herrell's

[ice cream]
15 Dunster St.
Recommended by CJH

See under Allston/Brighton; this one is in a former bank, with seating in the vault.

John Harvard's Brew House

[microbrewery]
33 Dunster
Recommended by MLO ***

This is the only microbrewery in Harvard Square. The beer and food are average or better. It's in the basement of the building which houses Pandemonium, the SF bookstore.

The Skewers

[modified middle-Eastern food]
92 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
617-491-3079
Monday-Sunday 11 am - 11 pm
Recommended by MLO ***

Somewhat Americanized middle Eastern food plus a variety of burgers, teriyaki, steak, etc. You can get kabobs, falafel, hummos, shawarma (recommended), salads. They have takeout and vegetarian meals.

Upstairs at the Pudding

[eclectic]
10 Holyoke St -- Harvard Square
864-1933
Highly recommended by MLO *****

The Hasty Pudding is a Harvard student club with theatrical pretensions and a great deal of history. (Five US presidents were members in their student days, for example.) Nowadays, it does some theater, but as far as I know its days as a student dining club are done.

Upstairs at the Pudding is an excellent restaurant located on the top floor of the Hasty Pudding. It's once of the nicest restaurants in Harvard Square. (It has a great roof-top dining area, too, but that is probably only of theoretical interest in December.) The cuisine is non-ethnic and fairly eclectic, but everything is superb. (For example, they served the best Caesar salad I've ever eaten, bar none.) I've eaten there are lunch time on business, but never at dinner. Lunches can easily run up to $20 or $25, and I would expect dinners to be correspondingly expensive.

Reservations are mandatory.

Yenching

[Chinese] ***
to be done: reasonable Chinese at reasonable prices; good solid Szechuan food, nothing remarkable.

Places in The Garage

Pandemonium Books & Games


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