Best of Boston

Neighborhood characters and bleary-eyed medical students meet beneath a permanent haze of smoke at this rough-at-edges Mission Hill haunt, where everyone seems to know everyone else’s name. On one recent evening, we heard a debate about the roots of genocide in the Mexican-American War overlapping with speculation about the most recent tabloid child abduction. Topping it off, a panhandler was scamming change in the men’s room. Now, if that doesn’t say “dive”…?