WHY Freshly cooked, healthy, flavorful Middle Eastern food, with nothing on the menu costing more than $8.50.

WHAT This Middle Eastern mini-café next to Hard Times Pizza in Silver Lake is unusual for its genre because it does not serve rotisserie chicken or falafel. But it does have lots of tasty things for both carnivores and vegetarians: aromatic kebabs, lentil soup, schwarma, hummus and grape leaves sandwich, excellent salad samplers and ikra, a kind of Middle Eastern ratatouille with super-smoky eggplant and a deep, caramelized onion flavor.