Best late-night restaurant
They say cozy, we say cramped. They say lively, we say loud. Comfy, noisy, friendly, trendy, let's call the whole thing ... dinner at the Franklin Café, one plan we'd never call off, for all its minor hassles. This low-key, out-of-the-way eatery is a genuine haunt for devotees of consummate cocktails. It also boasts a small seasonal menu, served well past many a bedtime, whose every dish is a discovery. Ever-modern yet never modish, with a bent for simple-yet-strong flavors, it's currently knocking us out with house-smoked trout, served with mustard and crackers; sausage-and-fennel rigatoni; and serious fried chicken. No wonder that, come closing time, when the folks at the Franklin say we must part, it all but breaks our hearts. Perhaps, as an admitted literary snob, you had shunned the Bukowski Tavern on principle. But then, late one night, as everything else was closing, you wandered in on impulse and an empty belly, reasoning that, after all, old Charlie didn't write the menu. And actually, the menu proved a pretty entertaining read, what with its White Trash Cheese Dip and mad chili dogs and $5 after-hours pricing - while the beer list waxed downright epic. Soon you were washing down an impressive mess of macaroni (four-cheese cavatappi, to be precise) with the properly poured Wolnzacher Hell recommended by the good-natured, self-described "beer nerd" behind the counter - and realizing you were having fun among the bright young barflies. And now? Even you can admit the Turgenev Tavern just wouldn't be the same.

Franklin Café, 278 Shawmut Avenue, Boston, (617) 350-0010; Bukowski Tavern, 50 Dalton Street, Boston, (617) 437-9999, 1281 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, (617) 497-7077.