The Cast Iron Kitchen is at the site of the former Quarterdeck restaurant, next to the Quarterdeck Fish Market on Main Street in Maynard.

Located in the heart of Lowell’s Art District, Heidi Feinstein’s Life Alive provides customers with a unique vegetarian experience.

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts restaurant, Bravo, is a European-style respite from the typically loud American bistro style of dining experience.

If the thought of a “Coach Grill” in the suburbs brings to mind a carving station with a side of cow under infrared lamps, it’s time to rethink the equation. The Back Bay Restaurant Group has resurrected the concept of the original Red Coach Grill (circa 1935) at its original site in Wayland, bringing basic American fare to your table with style.

There aren’t many choices for Mediterranean cuisine nearby, so when we recently craved some of my grandmother’s cooking, I recalled someone pointing me to Ichabod’s Café.

“Eat local.” While this mantra typically refers to a philosophy of eating foods raised within 100 miles of your house, I am taking the liberty of adapting it to dining out—in this case, within five miles of your house.

Unless you’re actively seeking out Vietnamese food, you might never think to explore Pho 88, which sits next to a nail salon in a plaza near the busy Drum Hill rotary in Chelmsford.

My friends were a bit reluctant to reveal details about the Mexican restaurant they’d been frequenting, for fear of it no longer being their own little secret. Ultimately, they trusted us and, well ... I’m about to violate that trust.

While I can appreciate the perception, I must admit I grow weary hearing people bemoan that “there’s no place to eat around here.”

The holiday season is upon us, and we all know how hard it is to find just the right gift for our foodie friends.

Is it possible to write 600 words about square bagels? This was the question I pondered upon leaving the “lunch club” I frequent on Saturdays, a group of regulars once described by a visiting guest as “irreverent.”

Asian fare outside of or in Boston does not get much better than at Tobiko, and whether you’re an adventurous or conservative diner, you will find something appealing on the menu.