One curiosity: everything savory has a touch of sweetness in it, and everything sweet has a bit of salt. Another: every single time I've been there, there has been at least one moment when women outnumbered men by better than three to one.

Perhaps most usefully for the out-of-towners, it also functions well as an after-dinner destination -- whether a dessert lounge for those who love sweets or just for drinks. The craft beer list is stellar; in the rare instance when it disappoints, a true beer snob can always be sent next door to the Blue Bird Bistro while the rest of us get our sugar on.

I've heard that Segal (although not HotChocolate) was the inspiration for the Ana Pascal character in last year's "Stranger than Fiction."