Best place for dessert
Remember when dinner was just that vegetable-laden obstacle between you and dessert? Finale is for those of us who equate adulthood not with the newfound willingness to tackle good nutrition but with the right to sidestep it altogether (maturity means never having to order a main course). However developed your sweet tooth, this duo of "desserteries" delivers something to delight it. Dignified palates take to Nicole Coady's bittersweet concoctions - the Coffee Connection sampler is a favorite - while more-sugary treats such as the Peanut Butter Joy curb kiddie cravings. And since they're all stunningly presented in a posh, sophisticated setting of crimson and gold, we'll look like grown-ups even as we're kissing

our carrots goodbye. If Finale's forte is the hot night on the town, L.A. Burdick's bailiwick is the chill gray afternoon - when chilling is all its customers are inclined to do. Locals of all ages pack the tiny Harvard Square space, decorous as a European café, with the sole goal of obtaining and riding out their sugar highs in style. The process begins with celebrated mugs of hot chocolate as dense and intense as any quaff born of Aztec ritual should be, and continues with elegant Austrian-style pastries and handmade chocolates direct from Burdick's bakery in Walpole. So how does it end? With the promise to start all over again tomorrow.

Finale, 1 Columbus Avenue, Boston, (617) 423-3184, 30 Dunster Street, Cambridge, (617) 441-9797, www.finaledesserts.com; L.A. Burdick, 52D Brattle Street, Cambridge, (617) 491-4340, www.laburdick.com.