Z Square

I think I see the future: Restaurant-going will be bifurcated. On one side will be haute temples of cuisine where diners will bow before the genius of the chef; on the other, "reasonably priced" comfort food for the hoi polloi so dependent on eating out that they've forgotten what a kitchen is.

At the moment, Z Square is for the latter crowd. This is a place to fill all food groups and all eating possibilities: The menu straddles burgers and sandwiches as well as entrees priced around $16. Breakfast is served all day long, and the place stays open from early morning to very late in the evening. For the students and denizens of the Square, it could be a substitute for a college cafeteria.

The young waitstaff can be cheerful and efficient or verging on rude. The packages of sugar on the table, the manager near the coffee room chastising a waitress for disappearing into the bathroom to check her makeup, the booming sound system all add up to an ambience a little more casual than might be intended. Which explains why the crowd is pressed tightly into the bar end of the room, the liveliest and prettiest area with gleaming high tables and a chic little bar.

Late one weekend night, we perch there, listening to the chatter around us and watching the young bartenders shake cocktails and pour glasses of beer and wine. Conversation swells around us. A bowl of linguine with pesto, green vegetables, and strips of grilled chicken is vibrantly flavored -- satisfying for a post-concert supper. Steak Cobb salad is more striking in looks -- lettuces, bright red tomatoes, slices of avocado, big chunks of crisp bacon, and blue cheese augmented by slices of rare steak -- than in taste. Where did the vinaigrette go anyway? But it's pleasant, and the food is fine for what we want.

That might explain the slight disappointment I experience when I return and anticipate the dining room. There's a slight muddle at the entrance -- traffic gets congested -- before we're ushered into the big open room, noisy with long tables of young diners and bustling with waiters and other staff members slamming in and out of the swinging door at the back. The tables are tiny, and the pedestals underneath mean our legs and feet tangle for space.

Our waiter valiantly tries to take our order, while also instructing another staff member about the drink orders at the next table. Three appetizers more than fill the table, and the runner who delivers them waits while we figure out how to squeeze them all onto the surface. I start to tell him to take away the sugar dish, but by that time he's handed off the last dish and disappeared.

A generously sized Greek salad is pretty to look at, and again seems to be lacking vinaigrette. Crepes are all over the menu, from breakfast through dinner, but a version with mushrooms and Swiss chard, tasted on an earlier visit, features a wrapping that is more like an American pancake than a thin, lacy crepe. And the filling is bland. Only an appetizer of grilled shrimp heavily flecked with chili peppers registers on the flavor scale.

In fact, that's the pattern. Barbecued jerk chicken sizzles with spice and has an appealing crunch to the exterior. The Wursthaus Special -- a plate of three great sausages, two spicy and one veal, over mashed potatoes and red cabbage -- evokes the famous landmark restaurant once on this site. But, though it's simple, the dish has real straightforward flavor in its hearty meats and vinegary cabbage.

Many of the other dishes run from pleasingly mild to pallid to a little odd. Rainbow trout is not at all bad, but I don't think I've seen sliced strawberries in a salad since the '80s (when the Wursthaus was still open); the berries and the greens they're mixed with are soggy. Salmon over polenta is nicely done, and a roast chicken boasts lovely roast potatoes. The beefy flavor of grilled skirt steak would have been just right, except the texture is too chewy.

And the vegetable stew is dismal -- Moroccan spices aren't discernible, and everything is mushy, even garbanzo beans, which might have been expected to offer a little crunch. Throughout the meal, a salt shaker would be a great substitution for the sugar packets.

Desserts are homey and satisfying, making up for some of the blandness. Well, not the lemon butter crepe, too light on lemon. Chocolate bread pudding is fine, though it lacks the sweet burst of sugar in chocolate gelato sandwiched between fat cookies. Difficult to eat, but worth it. And a pear crisp is the best, with its crunchy topping and a scoop of ice cream to round off the tastes.

Z Square's utilitarian virtues -- Harvard Square needs this all-day-into-night operation -- make one hope for a more uniform experience at this 6-month-old restaurant. In a phone conversation, Scott Robertson, who has been the executive chef for about a month, says that he's overhauling the menu, adding "more interesting" appetizers and entrees. Let's hope that includes a better handle on seasoning, or at least some salt. And a little more vinaigrette.