What is street food? Street food is good food that's not fancy. It's a great meal you can order quickly, yet without feeling like you're supposed to leave fast. It's food the locals usually know about--food that you don't feel strange eating by yourself, but are always glad to reveal to a special friend. Street food costs less than $10 per person. You order it at the counter, or at least pay for it there.
Lithium
by Richard Risemberg
East Hollywood can be a muddy pond indeed, but it seems that every day there are more lotus blossoms shining brightly above the murk. Maybe it's the new development taking place around the Metro station at Hollywood and Western, or maybe the train is simply letting new people discover an old neighborhood, but the world around this once-dingy stretch of the boulevard is changing.
The shabby storefronts are getting new coats of paint, the broken windows one morning are no longer broken, and even the nodding derelicts seem to be pulling themselves together a bit to keep up with a younger and more brightly-colored crowd. You hear the sounds of music and laughter from the windows of old brick masses that once housed only the lost and the fading, and the monotony of gray tones--that late-summer hue of smog and paper scraps, of road grease and pigeon feathers, of the ever-settling dust--now slowly but steadily retreats before a wave of colors that have changed a traverse of the block from a dreary trudge into a happy stroll. Espresso Mi Cultura--LA's friendliest coffeehouse--and Spitak (the best and possibly the least expensive Armenian bakery in LA), have shown up in these pages recently, and now a brand-new coffeehouse by name of Lithium joins them on the boulevard.
It's not your average coffeehouse--unless your average coffeehouse rents hookahs for you to puff on with your friends at the sidewalk tables in the late evening. The décor is both vibrant and comfortable (and much of it, such as the handmade crosses and mirrors, is for sale): the walls are a rich, deep orange, the chairs elegant and whimsical at the same time, the tables as ready for chess as for lunch; the population of sofas by the front door makes you wish that the food, good though it is, could come a little slower, if you please. And the food is good--better than coffeehouse food ever needs to be.
Lithium is good enough to be a café, without question: rich and ample sandwiches and clever salads, each with subtle Middle Eastern twists that reflect owner Mike's Armenian heritage. The Mediterranean salad--premised on Greek salad but more sophisticated--is hugely satisfying (and the full portion is satisfyingly huge), while the Roman salad is a paean to elegant simplicity: spears of cucumber and red pepper with tomato and a sublime string cheese that has nothing to do with that stuff you find in the supermarket, dressed with a breath of lemon and a dusting of salt, and served with pita bread. 
The "Nutty Vegetarian" sandwich spans the culinary globe with roasted eggplant spread, alfalfa sprouts, baby greens, avocado, and provolone, and there are half a dozen variations on the themes of turkey, ham, beef, and dolphin-safe tuna, while side salads change from day to day and may include anything from simple greens to home-made potato to hummous…roasted or pickled peppers of various heats are available as accents as well. And of course there's coffee, espresso, excellent smoothies, and the now-everpresent boba--done Mike's way, of course. Food with personality, and all of it tasty. And if you're really fussy, you can build your own sandwich or salad.
A glass cabinet full of Peruvian figurines and elegantly comic porcelain cows occupies half a wall, and another case showing off intriguing cigarette lighters stands guard by the dessert display--and if you need a phone card for calling Africa, you can get that too. But mostly what you'll come for is great food, great drinks, and a place to feel at home in while you eat. And you'll come back.
Unfortunately Lithium Café is now closed.
