“Seoul Kitchen” Chicken Lettuce Cups Libby’s Café and Bar
Libby’s Café and Bar celebrates kimchi with this savory treat. Typically made with Napa cabbage and red chili pepper, the chefs at Libby’s put their own personal touch on the national food of South Korea, adding carrot, daikon root and scallions. Marinated in a spicy mix of sesame oil, hoisin sauce, red pepper, rice vinegar, ginger and Korean spice, with a hint of sugar, and served atop ground chicken in a cup of hydroponic Boston bib lettuce, this dish will delight the adventurous and traditional alike.

Kombucha Beauty of Sprouts
Among the varied all-natural organic and vegetarian dishes available at Beauty of Sprouts, Sarasota’s newest devotee to the raw food movement, you’ll also find a rare offering in the region – Kombucha. Not your typical kombucha, owner and chef Rano Halikova swaps the usual black or green tea base for hibiscus. A slightly carbonated, light fermented drink with subtle tastes and a bit of sour, fringe foodies have long sung the praises of this little-known concoction, citing multiple benefits to health and digestion, but it’s still been hard to find without making your own or opting for the canned variety. With Beauty of Sprouts, the kombucha is homemade, fresh and just a jaunt away.

Sauerkraut Beagle Bay Organics
Similar to kimchi, this fermented cabbage dish is more familiar to folks stateside, but a sparse few still have yet tried the real thing, growing up on vinegar-soaked supermarket fare—it’s hardly fresh and has typically been heat-treated, destroying most of the probiotics that make fermented foods so beneficial. Keeping it simple, the standard recipe at Bradenton-based Beagle Bay Organics is green cabbage, sea salt and time to ferment. And while they may not heat-treat their sauerkraut, the husband and wife pair behind Beagle Bay spices things up a bit with varieties such as jalapeno, garlic or carrots and dill. Each batch has a slightly different taste, but it’s all good.

Kefir Mojito Café Evergreen
Stop by Café Evergreen for a drink eight years in the making. Hidden in the vault of the renovated bank building Evergreen calls home, a single water kefir culture, carefully grown for eight years, supplies all of the water kefir served for the last four years and is still going strong. Grown using organic agave for fuel, the result is rich in probiotics with a sweet flair. Add filtered water, organic lime and muddled mint and serve cold. Swapping rum for water kefir, Evergreen’s Kefir Mojito is a healthy and delicious alternative for your early-morning mojito cravings.

Homebrew Kit In The Spirits
All hail the king. Beer is the undeniable champion on the fermented field and now there’s no need to stay on the sidelines. Hidden away on Whitfield Avenue, you’ll find In The Spirits, the one-stop shop for the budding brewer. Beginners can grab what’s called the “Kool-Aid” kit, a prepackaged, premixed selection leaving only the basic fermentation process to the buyer and the more experienced can take their pick of available grains, hops and equipment for their next batch. And because it’s made fresh there’s no need to kill the fermentation process, unlike big brand shipments designed to sit on the shelf for weeks or months, thus retaining fuller taste and probiotic benefits. SRQ

Photography by Evan Sigmund

PHOTOGRAPHY BY EVAN SIGMUND