PlantPub is a cool little eatery in Kendall Square with a select beer and vino menu and satiating comfort food such as burgers, fried chicken sandwiches and pizzas – with no meat anywhere.

Waypoint, which feels like a cozy yet pleasingly eccentric Spanish tapas joint but specializes in seafood, has clam and smoked whitefish pizzas and mains such as squid ink and Jonah crab pastas – and one of my favorites: Smoked & Salted Peel & Eat Shrimp.

It was a pleasure to rediscover Taco Party in Ball Square, where this flexitarian was quite satisfied with the double-wrapped Crispy Fried Tofu, Chorizo Seitan, and Chimichurri Tempeh options.

I’m still smiling on the inside from having walked into Andala Coffee House and discovering its falafel sandwich, on grilled thin pita with very green, flattened falafels and veggies inside.

Loyal Nine is an intimate and cozy place to have dinner but also a nifty place to have lunch or brunch. I dig its smooth and creamy nitro cold-brewed coffee, but one of the more recent reasons I’ve been popping in is the simple things it does with chicken and eggs.

There’s several good reasons to visit Grendel’s Den, a Harvard Square institution celebrating its 50th year. One is that the boho eatery won a Supreme Court case in 1982 that could become the precedent to flip the recent Texas abortion ban.

Labor Day has passed, but there’s still an end-of-summer vibe in the air that can be savored with the spicy lobster salad at Hooked Fish Shop; grilling with meatless burgers from Whole Foods; and discovering the fine wines of Bonde in Harvard Square.

Dumpling House, the sister outpost to the wildly popular Gourmet Dumpling House in Chinatown, also has a lunch menu with solid offerings that are good deals for the dollar. But why bother? The only real question for a visit is: plain pork soup dumplings, or the crab and pork version?

Fans of meatless food have a new option in Union Square that emphasizes organically grown veggies with a Mediterranean spin.

Over the past few weeks the Porter Square Shopping Center got two more eateries: the local chain Soup Shack, specializing in Asian rice and soup bowls, and New York-based Halal Guys, which does classic spins on gyros and flatbread sandos.