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Motion Café, Bali

Canggu’s Motion Café is the must visit destination to eat in south Bali. They have a wide range of delicious menu options from vegan to paleo which puts them firmly on our glow list!

They also support local farmers and take sustainability and caring for the environment seriously. So what’s not to like?

Motion Café is known as the fitness food Valhalla in Canggu. Their standout dish is the divine sweet potato and protein waffle. The rest of the menu is also to die for, with an extensive range of organic food options- Paleo, Keto, Alkaline, Vegan, low sugar to name a few.

The location

Motion Cafe is on Jalan Pantai Batu Bolong, the busiest street of Canggu which leads to the beach a 20 minute walk away.

The space

The café space is open- half inside, half outside. It has turquoise and white walls alongside pretty printed wallpaper which creates a welcoming vibe. You can either order food as a takeaway or delivery, or eat in.

The service is very quick, we had all our dishes within 10-20 minutes and we were there at the busiest time of the day.

We chose a table with two large padded chairs in the outside section. The WiFi connection is very strong, so it’s a hotspot for people working on their laptops. There’s an open kitchen at the back of the restaurant, where they refrigerate their own homemade cakes, raw balls and juices.

The crowd

The crowd varies a lot, but it’s mostly the food and fitness conscious, like bodybuilders, due to the high protein menu options.

The fresh juice test

We ordered two freshly made juices- the Cold juice and the Frog juice (!). The Cold juice was a mix of pineapple, orange, lemon and ginger and tasted very tropical.

The Frog juice was, as it name suggests, green. It was a combo of apple, spinach, cucumber, parsley, lemon and ginger.

It wasn’t too sweet, as it contained a lot of veg, so it was refreshing to drink alongside the sweet dishes.

 

What we ate

Since we went for brunch, we chose a mix of sweet and savoury. As the sweet potato waffles are the real deal at Motion,  we had to order them and a smoothie bowl. Plus, we selected a vegetable wok with tempeh and two juices!

The waffle came with fresh chopped fruit (banana, apple, mango, papaya, watermelon, blueberries and dragonfruit (pitaya)), chopped walnuts, coconut cream and coconut syrup. It wasn’t as sweet as you’d expect, because of the savoury balance of the sweet potato base.

It was crunchy on the edge and soft in the middle and was packed with sweet potato making it very filling.

The Blueberry – Banana bowl had a frozen blueberry and banana base and was topped with a sesame- pumpkin- sunflower seeds mixture along with mango mousse, almond and coconut milk chia pudding, fresh strawberries and homemade vanilla granola. The base was quite liquid and melted fast, but the toppings were very rich and delicious.

The veggie wok was more simple. It came with a mix of stir fried vegetables, a little salad, a brown an red rice mix and some simply fried tempeh.

The menu indicates whether the food is vegan, vegetarian or gluten free and you can change the base to suit your preferences.

The little things that make the difference

Motion is committed to zero waste. They use glass straws, have their own reusable napkins and their glasses are made of recycled bottles.

When we couldn’t finish our “veggie wok” they offered a doggy bag.

The bill

Cold juice  45.000 IDR
Frog juice  45.000 IDR
Sweet potato waffle with fruit salad  70.000 IDR
Veggie wok  65.000 IDR
BB Bowl   85.000 IDR