Balance at Barefoot Buddha – St. Thomas

The hippies of St. Thomas have built a home with their bare hands, and Barefoot Buddha is the name they chose for this place where they can bare their feet. Enter and be calmed by the walls of yoga-studio orange. Feel freed as you walk toward the register while the framed multitudes of meditators bid you Namaste.

I usually just sip water, but I couldn’t resist the sound of a Lemon Passion Italian Soda. I didn’t end up loving this not-quite-lemony infusion with its strong herbal undertones, but that’s more because I was looking for a sugar-filled instant-cavity. Plus it was a little flat.

Barefoot Buddha already looks like the inside of my neighborhood yoga studio, but it’s the sandwiches that really make me feel like I’m back on the mat. The Veg Out Wrap (on the right) has all the delicate, airy balance of a perfect dancer pose, an impressive feat with little room for error. The tangy sun-dried tomato and creamy avocado are the major muscles, and the sprouts and greens add all the air of a deep yoga breath. Unfortunately, the sharp red onion nestled amongst crisp greens, red pepper, and sweet orange carrots will make sure that that breath will knock even the most dedicated of dancers out of their pose. I can’t recall everything in the wrap on the left of this photo, but it was an assembly of some of the best falafel I’ve ever had, a delectable daily special.

The Sweet Potato Wrap is a little more laid back, the warrior poses to the Veg Out’s dancer. Warrior one and warrior two make a calibrating warm-up, where you shift your hips and find your balance on every new day. When done right, they’re as pretty as the orange and green of mashed sweet potato and stacks of spinach. It take far less precision to hold this basic balance, but just when you start to get comfortable, the savory contrast of a layer of hummus with a creamy chevre can sometimes shake things up.

In yoga you take a lot of very varied muscles and make them work together toward a common goal. And when you assemble each thing just right you after weeks and months, something suddenly clicks. Grainy hummus balances creamy goat cheese, and a soft tomato holds off the crisp, fresh spinach in this Hummus & Rosemary Goat Cheese Panini. And like a yoga pose, a hair too much or a hair too little of any element will that carefully constructed pose come tumbling down.

At Barefoot Buddha, the sandwiches are superb and the wraps will wow you. So when you grow tired of the chicken and hot sauce routine of the island, ensconce yourself in a form of nirvana made possible only by food. Barefoot Buddha may look like a crunchy-granola zen-den, but if you sit down and soak it in just a little more, you’ll see that it can become anybody’s haven, a place where anarchists come to analyze, philosophers come to roost, and rabbles come of rouse.