THE ENABLER

Highland Park looks better on paper than it does in person. Steps from the Gold Line, the Eastside neighborhood’s main drag claims a vegetarian Mexican restaurant, a quaint pizza parlor, a host of nail salons, tasty taco shacks and a filthy-cheap first-run movie theater. But there aren’t many other diversions you can walk to, and after nightfall the streets are dark and eerily silent.

All those folks you expect to be on the town are actually at the Little Cave, Los Angeles’ most unlikely Goth dive. If the windowless, obsidian-and-blood-colored bar were nestled in the thick of Hollywood, it probably would have been claimed by corset-clad ladies of the night years ago. But then it wouldn’t be half as weird as the real deal.

With back-lighted bats in the ceiling, bright pink bathrooms stenciled with bats, a bustling outdoor patio, Joy Division on the jukebox and endless loops of pop-culture classic films like “Ghostbusters” projected on the wall, the Little Cave draws area Latinos and Emily the Strange types in equal parts.

The only drawback to this perfect piece of dingy macabre is the price of the drinks. Eight dollars for well whiskey? Who’s sucking whose blood here?

5922 N. Figueroa St., (323) 255-6871

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-- theguide@latimes.com