The Cultured Pickle Shop, Berkeley, CA

 The alchemists have moved on from boring things like trying to turn base metals into gold.  The hip ones are making kombucha and pickles.  An enclave of alchemical wizards have set themselves up in Berkeley.  At The Cultured Pickle Shop, we had a delicious lunch.  The ambiance is laboratory, but the food was wonderfully rich and balanced.  

The main bowl is selection of pickles over rice.  The bowl is a rainbow and the flavors range from a sweet parsnip puree to a salty-acid daikon pickle to crisp, bitter radicchio.  There were about fourteen items in the bowl over a base of rice.  There is are additional side dishes that we added to our meal - avocado with lemon kosho and garlic pickle; a sesame tofu; and a cured egg.The final course was a dessert of chocolate pudding with blood orange.  We added a nice blood orange kombucha and a serving of amazake.  Amazake is fermented rice drink, similar to horchata, with a molasses-like sweetness.  This was made with ginger and was outstanding.

                                                        Our add-on's

                                                        The dessert course

                                                        The main bowl

The main bowl is $36.  It begins with a bowl of carrot/lemon dashi (soup).  The contents of the bowl change weekly.  We had: arugula, radicchio, grapefruit kosho (greens dressing), sauerkraut, parsnip/miso puree, kombu squash, pumpkin kimchi, asparagus, daikon pickle, koji leeks, leek greens in miso tamari, mustard greens with turmeric, red daikon pickled with lime, kohlrabi, turnip greens and more.  The main bowl includes the dessert course of chocolate amazake pudding with blood orange/fennel honey.  It is a big meal!

The area is a mostly small business and homes, so it was easy to find parking on the street.  There is a coffee shop across the street.