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TABLE BROTH: The wagyu beef, boneless short-rib, and Seafood Supreme are cooked to order.

Plus, I’ve finally mastered the eating and cooking techniques involved. The secret is that the broth at the end is superb, so you want to use the protein and vegetables from the entrées as appetizers, then sate yourself with the soup mixture from the boiling water. Before I learned this trick, I would leave the broth bubbling away on the table cooker. Now I ask for a container to take it home.

With its second location — the first is in Chinatown — Shabu-Zen has refined the process with ceramic heating elements (no fumes) at each table, and added choices in the protein area. Its food selection and presentation is still a bit behind the Chinatown Kaze, but there is much to enjoy here, and this huge space fills up with Asian families even on a weeknight.

If you want formal appetizers, there are dozens, and some are choice and well-priced. Light eaters could skip shabu-shabu altogether. Seaweed salad ($2.50), for instance, is sesame-rich and delicious, as well as healthful. Sautéed baby clams ($6.50) are a wonderful plateful of small calico clams in a gravy-like sauce with some meaty and spicy elements. Baby octopus ($3.95) in a light tomato marinade is tasty. As are “Berkshire sausages” ($5), presumably made from the heritage Berkshire swine. These are four scrumptious breakfast links on a leaf of Napa cabbage, served with mustard.

You could also have a bit of sashimi, but the hamachi (yellowtail) ($6) was served barely thawed. The effect of the cold hamachi was that its fat content registered as a waxy texture. I suspect much of the food here is partially frozen to make easier and neater slices. Indeed, cubes of soft tofu came to the table frozen, and had to be cooked in the soup.

To start, then, with the draught brews (of which there are 36, along with more than 100 bottles), we tried Affligem Blond ($7), which is actually an amber Belgian ale. I think it’s supposed to be served a little warmer, but it was clean, with the wine-y and unusual flavors of the Belgian style. At seven percent alcohol, it creeps up on you. For the true blond (if somewhat cloudy) pour, I preferred Unibroue Éphémère, a “white ale” brewed with some boiled apple juice. By keeping the alcohol down to 5.5 percent, this Quebec microbrewery gets a cider aroma and flavor, warming to pear and spice.

There are really only two appetizers: Monk’s Frites ($6) and moules frites ($7/appetizer; $14/dinner). These are made with hand-cut Yukon Gold potatoes and served in a paper cone, as they would be in Belgium, with various dips. Some fries are crisp, some are not, and all have wonderful potato flavor. The smaller portion served with the mussels is served in a drinking cone. The mussels are leaner than their shells would imply, which is the norm for the season. There is a choice of five different “pots” for the mussels; we had pot Number 2, based on Affligem Blond, Asiago cheese, tomatoes, spinach, and garlic. We were licking the shells to get all the cheese, then using them for spoons to have the broth. The ale gave it a bitter finish, perhaps best with the grilled garlic bread provided.

Perhaps most remarkably, they serve the real Spanish bread, in paper bags: miniature, pointy-ended loaves that are softer than, though just as flavorful as, genuine French bread. You can have it with the complimentary platter of olives (including giant, ripe red ones never before seen in Boston) and the excellent extra virgin olive oil with tarragon leaves marinating in the bottle.

The menu is all small plates: some are more clearly the bar-snack “pinchos” or “tapas” (literally “lids”), while others are more like appetizers or units of entrées. For snacking, don’t miss the fried garbanzo beans ($4). Although it’s just a little plate, each chickpea has a kick of paprika and garlic. With a catchy name like “Catalan Popcorn,” this could be huge. Another small plate you’ll want several of is the classic tortilla ($4), a slice from a thick potato omelet, here served with a lemony homemade mayonnaise. Asparagus soup ($5) is creamy, full of chopped asparagus, and topped with shredded Manchego cheese. I also liked a special dish of broiled chili peppers ($8), full of concentrated flavor; a couple of the peppers were a bit spicy, too.

To fill up, get something with a sauce, such as the spiced tripe and chorizo ($8), a richly flavored tomato-based stew in the tradition of French tripe à la mode de Caen. Or try the littleneck clams ($14), eight clams in a loaf’s worth of onion-garlic-clam-broth sauce that just won’t quit. Another gravy-bearing stew is squid rings ($9) with Basque blood sausage (better than it sounds; rather like scrapple); the rings were nearly as tender as fish. Marinated mussels ($8) were actually pickled with peppers, carrot, and onion.

Maybe I could move up the reincarnation ladder and become a woodpecker if I admit that Tibetan restaurants in Boston are getting better, and that Tashi Delek is such a nicely decorated room, with such reasonably priced food, that it makes a very good alternative, even in restaurant-saturated Brookline Village. In fact, there’s an item at Tashi Delek that I think all chefs should check out — the “Tng Mo” ($3/à la carte; also included with dinner entrées). The menu description is “steamed wheat bran buns,” which strongly understates the case. These are whole-wheat breads with the texture of Chinese steamed buns, folded in beautiful wave-like patterns like Parker House rolls. Someone is surely going to e-mail me that these Brookline tng mo are pale copies of the ones you get in a particular backstreet café in Lhasa, and that they don’t count without yak butter. But I have to tell you that a basket of these with unsalted cow butter is a very convincing illusion of earthly pleasure incarnate.

Like most Tibetan restaurants, Tashi Delek serves momos ($6.50/appetizer; $14–$15/entrée). You get a choice of four fillings, either steamed or fried. The classic filling is of course yak, for which beef and vegetables are the American substitutes. Momos are related to Peking ravioli via Genghis Khan, but beefier. Of the monkish versions (tofu, spinach and cheese, greens and mushrooms), go with the greens and mushrooms. As momos go, the ones here are somewhat starchy.

THE MAIN EVENT: Entrées, such as the skirt steak and Cornish hen, are better bets at Vintage.

The breadbasket was problem number two: cracker breads are fun, but like baguette toasts, they don’t soak up any sauces. They’re workable as carriers for pâté, not for the smear of olive oil and balsamic vinegar we were given.

Our appetizers were good though undistinguished, and the salt began to mount. Mussels Provençal ($11) were nice, plump shellfish, with a garlicky wine sauce that was salty enough to float eggs. A duck spring roll ($10) is a passable fusion idea, fried without too much grease. It’s accompanied by grapefruit slices and an arugula salad . . . with an over-salted dressing. Speck salad ($11) is based on dried, cured bacon, so of course that was saline, too — when it wasn’t wonderfully smoky or, in part of one bite, a little bit rancid. NaCl levels kept coming on the pea-tendril side salad.

“Crispy Fried Calamari” ($10), a “Vintage Lounge House Specialty,” had another over-seasoning problem: too much hot pepper in the pink mayonnaise sauce. It could have been crisper. Still, it gets points for the Kalamata olives.

CRISPY BASIL CHICKEN Nicely fried in squid-like strips, and the savor of Asian basilis unique.

Big mistake. While a review of the new Cambridge location gave me the chance to delve a little deeper into the authentic Taiwanese dishes, one of the most impressive things about this kitchen is the attention paid to detail on both the Chinese-American food and the home-style stuff. Even the steamed white rice ($1.25) is unusually delicious here, buttery tasting without the use of butter and as aromatic as Thai rice. We couldn’t find a weak spot in the overly long menu.

To start with the unusual, you might have a Taiwanese snack such as an order of “pig’s ear” ($4.50), thin-sliced strips of cold gelatinous material that manage to hold quite a bit of soy and five-spice taste. “Crispy basil chicken” ($7.50) isn’t very crisp, but it is nicely fried in squid-like strips, and the savor of sautéed Asian basil is unique. Speaking of squid, the “fried calamari ball” ($6.95) is in fact a plateful of ground-squid meatballs, each with an “X” cut into it, and more of that sautéed basil.

Even should some non-adventurous tourist walk in and order egg rolls ($2.90 “for one”; $5.75 “for two”) and barbecued spareribs ($4.75/$8.50), they’ll still think this is an unusually good restaurant. The ribs are classic, as are the egg rolls, though the latter have some subtle seasoning among the cabbage. Both are served with duck sauce and traditional mustard.

What’s the least Asian item on a Chinese-restaurant menu? Arguably crab Rangoons ($3.75/$6.75), which are wonton skins stuffed with cream cheese and a bit of crab, then deep-fried. But Wisteria House folds theirs into “W” shapes for an extra-crisp surface and serves them fresh and warm, without grease. The larger portion has 14 Rangoons, enough to cater a wedding party. You could also order egg-drop soup ($3.25/small; $5.95/large), another dish almost as Chinese as the American flag. We did, and it was delightful, with a mild but real stock and notes of egg white and scallion in every spoonful.

SMOKED BLUEFISH CAKES Like meaty crab cakes, served with peppery mayonnaise dressing.

Food starts with sourdough bread and sweet butter. Smoked bluefish cakes ($8.95) were on the Caribbean menu at Green Street Grill, though I don’t think bluefish migrate south of the Carolinas. Here they’re like meaty crab cakes, and served with peppery mayonnaise dressing. Rhode Island–style fried calamari ($7.95) have red and green (not-too-hot) hot peppers fried right in. The squid are sweet, the frying is fresh and crisp, and the accompanying dip is a fiery romesco. A special appetizer platter featured two diver sea scallops ($10.95) on top of a terrific hash of chopped artichoke and potatoes, with a tapenade of sun-dried tomatoes on top. I loved the hash but didn’t love the tapenade, so I didn’t eat that part.

You could also just have one of the inexpensive little plates of bar snacks, such as marinated olives ($3.95), which gave us four kinds marinated in lots of garlic and bay leaves.

A cup of Texas chili ($4/cup; $6/bowl) was heaped with cheese, chopped scallion, sour cream, and a wedge of excellent corn bread. Underneath all that was some piquant no-bean chili, full of cubed and chopped meat. (The rule about chili is that mine is the best in the world, and yours is, well, not the best in the world. But I’ll eat this.) For a vegan appetizer, you could have one of the vegetable side dishes, such as broccoli rabe ($3), sautéed to bittersweet with lemon and garlic. Or you could have the vegan soup of the day ($3/cup; $5/bowl), which on my second visit was cream of broccoli rabe. (I guess I was the only person who ordered it as a side vegetable the night before.) It was even better as a soup, the cream base cutting some of the bitterness and leaving a bowl of light-green goodness.

Author and gallery owner Sam Sarowitz worked in film development hell before turning his extensive collection of movie posters (now 12,000+) into a lucrative business, and now a book. Translating Hollywood: The World of Movie Posters (Mark Batty Publisher), culled from Sarowitz’s Posteritati Gallery in New York, offers a fascinating look at several golden ages of movie marketing. Most of the posters come from the late 1950s and after. Hollywood classics are the focus, but there’s a nice selection of French New Wave, world cinema classics, and genre pictures (Halloween, Deep Throat), with some telling nuggets thrown in: the US poster for In Cold Blood, for example, used the eyes of the real killers, not the actors.

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VIDEO: The trailer for Baghead

Whether the Duplass brothers belong to the mumblecore mix is open to debate (and indeed, Swanberg and Bujalski would be happy if the term –– which refers to the way characters seem to speak before they know what they want to say –– simply went away), but they’re savvy enough to recognize that the supposed genre is ripe for spoofing. They’ve constructed a compact meta-movie laced with knowing winks.

Filled with alcohol-fueled plans of penning a screenplay populated with plum roles for themselves, the four pals, unsuccessful actors all (surprise!), decide to drive to a remote cabin for the weekend. What will the film be about? “Love!” declares schlubby Chad (Steve Zissus), who wants Michelle (Greta Gerwig, from Swanberg’s LOL and Hannah Takes the Stairs and his upcoming Nights and Weekends, which she co-directed), the vacuous young twentysomething just off the bus from the Midwest, to be his “movie girlfriend.” Of course, Chad secretly pines for her to be his actual girlfriend. The youngest of the group (the rest are pushing 40), Michelle actually has eyes for Chad’s pal Matt (Ross Partridge), the handsome alpha male with “Elvis hair” who’s been dating Catherine (Elise Muller) on and off for 11 years. Neither this nor his knowledge of Chad’s hopes stops Matt from planning to sleep with Michelle, who deflects Chad’s advances by telling him that “You’re like my best friend . . . or my brother.”

VIDEO: The trailer for American Teen

Burstein’s main subjects come from five different cliques. There’s the sweet jock (Colin Clemens), the pretty misfit (Hannah Bailey), the powerful prom queen (Megan Krizmanich), the clever outcast (Jake Tusing), and the sensitive heartthrob (Mitch Reinhold). They don’t stay in separate worlds for long, though. Midway through filming, the stars align. Sitting in the audience at the Warsaw Community High School talent show, watching the artsy Hannah rock out on her guitar, Mitch comes to a realization. He doesn’t want to graduate without ever talking to that girl. He develops a full-blown crush, and he and Hannah launch a when-social-hierarchies-collide story line that John Hughes would approve of. “There are so many girls who would give their left boob to be with him,” Hannah tells the cameras. Five or ten years into the future, Hannah and Mitch might have had a chance. But this is high school; even when you succeed in shocking people with your happiness, they don’t always let you get away with it.

With all her charms and idiosyncrasies, Hannah is American Teen’s unofficial star, and through her keen eyes we watch the lives of the others unravel. Burstein nonetheless switches perspectives with a light, non-judgmental touch. It’s easy to sympathize with Hannah’s heartbreaks, her city-rebel-stuck-in-a-small-town personality, and her battle with depression, or with the way Jake uses a caustic, self-depreciating wit to deal with his insecurity. But mean girl Megan is portrayed as neither a witch nor a martyr, and popular Colin struggles to find peace with his family’s expectations. He and Megan may have peaked early, but nobody is all bad or all good in American Teen.

VIDEO: Interview with Nanette Burstein

Before you began filming American Teen, what made you decide to chronicle the lives of teenagers culled from various places on the high-school food chain: a jock, a princess, a nerd, a misfit?
If you watch teen fiction films, you see the same stories told over and over again. There’s basically four of them. The Romeo and Juliet story across class or race of clique lines, like the forbidden love. Triumph over adversity, which often involves sports, but not necessarily. The underdog looking for acceptance, which is the nerd, usually. And the mean girl’s power struggle. And all of those stories, I found, existed in reality.

What prompted you to try to create another narrative of the high-school experience, a period that’s been defined and redefined ad nauseam?
I hadn’t seen a really complicated high-school movie that took a lot of the experiences that I felt or saw around me. High school was a really formative time in my life — I think for a lot of people in both a good and bad way. Through the pain and torture, I realized who I was.

Tell me about your selection and screening process. Why did you choose the town of Warsaw, Indiana, as the setting?
I looked in the Midwest because I think there’s a timelessness and more of an innocence about that part of the country than the rest of America. And I wanted to be in a town that only had one high school because I think that there’s more social pressure that way. You can’t escape — or you’re super-powerful. I wanted it to be economically mixed; I was hoping for it to be racially mixed, but that was hard to find in the Midwest, in small towns, at least. We called, you know, just hundreds of schools that sort of fit this demographic . . . and out of that found the best stories all in one place.

VIDEO: The trailer for Brideshead Revisited (2008)

“Excuse me, Mr. Waugh, did you see the new movie version of Brideshead Revisited?”

(Editor’s note: the following exchange took place in an undisclosed location, presumably celestial.)

“New movie? What was wrong with the old one?”

"I believe they’ve updated your book. New and improved is how they like to describe these things.”

“Improved?”

“Well, sir, you still have Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) as a poor — ”

“Poor? Charles? Do they think I wrote The Talented Mr. Ryder?”

“ — student who goes to Oxford and falls in love with Lord Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) and his sister Lady Julia (Hayley Atwell) and their Wiltshire manor, Brideshead (Castle Howard in Yorkshire), and he and Sebastian drink too much, and then the Flytes’ pious mother, Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), takes Charles under his wing. The three young people go to Venice — ”

“Julia goes to Venice with Sebastian and Charles?”

“ — to visit the Flytes’ father, Lord Marchmain (Michael Gambon), who went off to the Great War and stayed on the Continent and took a mistress (Greta Scacchi), and there’s some kind of Carnival — ”

“In Venice in the summer?”

“ — where Charles kisses Julia and Sebastian sees it and gets upset.”

“I didn’t write that.”

“It’s in the script, sir. And Lady Marchmain gets upset too because the Flytes are Anglo-Catholics — ”

“They’re Roman Catholics. As was I.”

“Anglo-Catholics is what it says on the jacket of the new Everyman edition, sir. And Charles can’t marry Julia because she has to marry a Catholic.”

“Lady Marchmain appears to know more about Catholicism than I do.”

“So she gives a ball at Brideshead and announces Lady Julia’s engagement to Rex Mottram (Jonathan Cake).”

“But Lady Marchmain detests Mr. Mottram.”