Cocoon
This family-run store may seem small, but it's packed with objects to render your home as cozy, chic, and vaguely exotic as its name. There are intricately beaded silk table runners, art deco picture frames, mammoth plants, exquisite scented candles, artsy salt and pepper shakers, gorgeous Asian antiques, and a flat-out stunning selection of French tulips, Chinese bamboo, and other exotic flowers available by the stem or bouquet. Make sure to allow ample browsing time, then circle back again; you're sure to stumble upon another unique piece you missed on the first pass. 170 Tremont St., Boston, MA cocoonhome.com.
Car Talk.com
This companion to the long-running National Public Radio show extends the lunacy that you hear on the air every Saturday. The centerpiece of Click and Clack's home page is "Time Kill Central," which includes features like the Hate Mail Generator (which can churn out letters to lousy mechanics) and the Daily Didactic Diversion, a trivia contest. You can also print out your own traffic tickets—like a "Blue Hair Offense" for people who can't see over the wheel and rive 35 mph in a 65 mph zone.
Machine Age
If tripping over midcentury treasures is your idea of a good time, then you'll party like it's 1959 in this 9,000-square-foot showroom where Charles and Ray Eames are alive and well. Encompassing hundreds of pieces from the 1930s through the 1970s by Italian, French, Scandinavian, and U.S. designers, Machine Age may have a few items that creep you out a little (hey, wasn't that easy chair in Uncle Morty's living room two decades ago?), but for aficionados, shopping here feels so much more right than shelling out for those Design Within Reach repros. 645 Summer St., Boston, MA 2210, machine-age.com.
Micro Center
With heavy hitters like Lenovo, Apple, and Sony to call upon, the sole Bay State outpost of Ohio-based Micro Center stocks the best personal computers on the market, along with a bevy of cameras, scanners, monitors, and other peripherals. But what really gets local tech-heads powered up is the vast BYOPC (Build Your Own PC) section, replete with all the components needed to pimp that desktop—or build one from scratch. Free in-store clinics on such topics as VoIP and network security further cater to IT acolytes who aspire to true geekdom. 730 Memorial Dr., Cambridge, MA 2139, microcenter.com.
KitchenArts
It must be tempting for a purveyor of kitchen goods to dazzle browsers with gizmos. KitchenArts doesn't need to. True, it has some trendy doodads (equipment for making those exotic teas you bought last year during your trip to Nepal, for instance), but its raison d'être is to provide the absolute correct tool for any culinary endeavor. There's more than half a dozen types of rolling pins and just as many whisks, alongside bakeware in every size and shape, All-Clad and Le Creuset pots and pans, and an armory of knives (including reconditioned blades at cut-rate prices).
Coast Cafe
Dainty eaters, beware. Only those with a hankering for a little grease and gobs of pork-addled flavor are able to handle the made-to-order plates at Cambridge's stick-to-your-ribs haven. Sure, the chicken's great, but there's also smoked turkey with collard greens, and bread crumb–encrusted mac and cheese, and silky sweet potatoes, and… (the only thing harder than settling on an order here, you'll find, is nabbing one of the few seats). Coast Café may not have much competition in these parts—KFC? Popeyes?—but it could surely hold its own in Dixie. 233 River Street, Cambridge, MA 2139, coastsoulcafe.com.
Rafanelli Events
Nothing chips away at an engaged couple's quality time (not to mention sanity) quite like wedding planning. Guest lists, save-the-dates, seating charts, the scores of teensy details that pop up along the way to "I do"—they can harry even the most come-what-may pair. Fete vet Bryan Rafanelli smoothly juggles it all to create an event unlike anything your guests have ever seen, whether the theme is winter wonderland or summer clambake. The only thing you lovebirds need to do is figure out how to put that extra free time to, ahem, good use. 142 Berkeley St., Boston, MA rafanellievents.com.
Polka Dog Bakery
Puffy's not the best shopping companion: drooling on merchandise, constantly demanding attention, invading strangers' personal space. Any place that overlooks —welcomes, even—such unseemly habits scores big with us. This year Polka Dog expanded to accommodate its lines of animal gear with voluminous bins of squeaky cupcakes and rubber telephones, walls of collars, piles of beds, and accessories for literal clothes hounds. As if all that weren't enough, there's the popular buffet of inventive edibles, for when your guests' shoes are no longer an option: liver chips, salmon coins, and catnip "pawbreakers" for delicate breeds; cow thigh bones for those with heartier appetites. 256 Shawmut Ave., Boston, MA polkadog.com.
History
This is vintage for the finicky. No wading through bins, no discarding racks' worth of garments for signs of age or questionable authenticity. Co-owner and former high school history teacher Rachel Hirsch works with suppliers from around the globe, and each piece that she pulls into her immaculate Porter Square shop is carefully inspected and arranged by decade. The finishing touch is a tag describing the occasion for which some stylish woman could have originally donned the garment. Reads the legend for a black velvet babydoll from the '60s: "This might actually be a fun New Year's Eve." Chances are, your night out in any History purchase will be equally memorable. 1693 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA historyboutique.com.
Harvard Book Store
Sticking it to the corporate chains is most satisfying when you can do so without, you know, sacrificing anything. Seventy-five years after Boston native Mark Kramer opened a bookstore in Harvard Square, the supersize word-maven haven is still family-owned (by Kramer's son, Frank) and still doing everything right, with a public library's worth of used tomes, and new releases to rival Barnes and Borders. In a particularly Cantabrigian touch, the shop vows to go to court before disclosing your purchases to the government or anyone else, should they for some reason ask. Take that, Patriot Act! 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA harvard.com.
Ace Ticket
Getting into a Red Sox game these days is like trying to hit the Mega Millions jackpot: The odds are seriously not in your favor. Either you suck up to the boss in the faint hope he'll throw you one of the company tickets, or you overpay a scalper and pray you don't get scammed with phonies. Or, if you're smart, you try Ace Ticket: The company has been getting Bostonians into Pats games, concerts, and even Red Sox tilts for more than 20 years now. And because Ace is a licensed broker, you won't be left holding counterfeits when the big event hits town. 20 Franklin St., Allston, MA .
Sebastian's Cafe
You want to be healthy, honest you do. But it's hard when you can't be sure just how long that mesclun has been sitting in the salad bar. The greens, roasted peppers, baby corn, and other fresh veggies at Sebastians never invite such suspicion, looking and tasting as though they arrived from the farm mere moments ago. At your direction, the speedy servers pack up vibrant lettuce, grilled meats, and cheeses with just the right amount of dressing. A basic salad is $6.75, so you'll have room, and cash, left over for an indulgent dinner. 100 Summer St., Boston, MA sebastians.com.
Brattle Theatre
You can catch an Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu flick at any multiplex nowadays, but you won't see Boston Underground Film Festival highlights or a repertory series of World War II movies—or, for that matter, a weeklong Muppets marathon—anywhere else but the Brattle. The Harvard Square institution has been screening foreign, art house, and classic films for over 50 years, but it's much more than a sleepy civic treasure: It's holy ground for Boston's cineastes, budding film auteurs, and anyone who just likes to watch Casablanca on the big screen. 40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA brattlefilm.org.
T.T. the Bear's Place
With a capacity of only 270, this Central Square haunt has an oversize personality that defies its small scale (and always sticky floor). The volume's appropriately loud, the drinks (served in plastic cups) are priced low, and the shows are so rollicking, you'll be a T.T.'s devotee from your first visit: Over 100 bands—a sonic cornucopia of well-regarded Hub artists and fledgling acts from across the country—take the scuffed stage each month. If you want to see the next big thing before everyone else does, this is the place. 10 Brookline St., Cambridge, MA ttthebears.com.
Belly Wine Bar
This city has no shortage of fab cellars boasting wine menus as thick as a midsize town’s phone book. But lately we’ve been digging vino programs that trade exhaustive depth and range for singular points of view. At Belly Wine Bar, co-owner Liz Vilardi (who also owns the shop Central Bottle) crushes hard on old-world beauties with brash, tart, and downright dirty tendencies: lambruscos, Beaujolais, orange tannin-bombs, funky Savoie whites. All of which just so happen to pair beautifully with the house-cured salumi. Go figure. One Kendall Sq., Cambridge, MA 2139, bellywinebar.com.