Kafe and The Garden Kafe alike are a part of the extremely successful and pretty famous Yoga Barn in Ubud. Offering a wide range of different yoga classes every day from early until late in this sleepy town, The Yoga Barn has many loyal customers and as a result their café outposts get pretty busy. Kafe is further toward the centre of Ubud on Jalan Hanoman, whilst The Garden Kafe overlooks The Yoga Barn studios within grounds of tall banana trees and even taller coconut palms in a mass of green. Set far back off the road, the latter is a peaceful place, away from the sound of scooters hooting. The staff are friendly and attentive, and as you may have guessed by now, the food is seriously healthy. Mostly vegetarian with an extensive vegan and raw menu, Kafe caters excellently to the health conscious yogi crowd.
Whilst you couldn’t pay me to turn vegan, the few times I did grab food here during my time in Ubud left me impressed with the quality and freshness of ingredients, and I enjoyed knowing I was eating something truly healthy to go with my side of yoga class. And frankly it made me feel like I’d really earnt my evening Bintangs.
The wide range of different meals on the menu is impressive for a mostly vegetarian and vegan café, as well as inventive. There are a huge amount of breakfasts and mains to choose from, not to mention a large list of salads and raw desserts. The grilled veggie and feta salad I had at Garden Kafe one day was delicious and pretty sizeable at that. Kafe and the smaller outpost at The Yoga Barn do have slightly different menus, and the former is slightly more expensive. Kafe serves dinner in the evening whilst Garden Kafe closes at 6pm.
The juice menu is extensive and there’s no alcohol served, so forget it if you’re after a cold Bintang with your lunch. Kafe’s juices (18,000 – 30,000 IDR) are highly popular of course (because this is Ubud); each juice designed to help your body in some way by aiding digestion, energizing, detoxifying – I could go on. My personal favourite was the Energy Drink: pineapple, apple, ginger and cucumber blended together, and I actually liked it so much I would go to Kafe simply for it, which I’d consider a pretty strong accolade from a staunchly non vegetarian patron. These two hangouts are the perfect healthy option to help you immerse yourself in all things Ubud.
