Sunday, September 14, 2014

Life Cafe @ Taman Segar, Cheras

I hardly come across Chinese style cafe that serves a good variety of main courses, snacks, boiled soups and beverages. If you are hanging around in Cheras and looking for a cafe like this, you can give this cafe a go. Read on and let me introduce various items we have tried during the review thanks to invitation by LivingSocial Malaysia.






Fried Chicken & Leek Dumpling (RM7.50)



While the skin has a mild crispy and chewy texture, encased within was well seasoned chicken and leek mixture. Pretty decent snack or appetizer to begin with. If you prefer non-fried version, you can opt for the poached dumplings at the same price. Good thing the skin wasn’t cooked till too mushy. Dip the dumplings with some vinegar provided by the side to provide tangy flavor. 


Poached Chicken &
 Leek Dumpling (RM7.50)



For spicy food lovers out there or like me, Life’s Spicy Wonton (RM8.90) may tickle tastebuds easily. The sourish and adequately spicy sauce was great for me, along with plump juicy wantons made from minced chicken. It could be proper seasonings or ginger are added to eliminate the chicken taste as I find chicken version was still pretty delicious, compared to the usual pork wontons.



Traditional Homemade Meat Roll (RM7.50) was the star that it was finished up within seconds. Flavourful meat fillings wrapped with beancurd skin (fuchuk) and deep fried till golden brown- there is nothing not to like here. But  still I would have preferred sweet spicy Thai sauce over normal bottled chilli sauce to go with this. 

Moving on to soups- a café that serves boiled soup? Now I know where to find affordable and reasonable variety of boiled soups whenever I’m craving for one. It’s hard to find fault in the boiled soups here, which means the flavours of ingredients have infused in the broth and cooked for enough amount of time. Plus point- serving in a claypot that is essential to keep the soup warm and comforting.

Black Bean Chicken Soup (RM9.90)

Eight Treasure Chicken Soup (RM9.90)


Mushroom Peanut Soup (RM9.50) - generous amount of beans, red dates, wolfberries and vegetarian flour doughs. One of the best vegetarian soups I’ve had.

 Lotus Root Chicken Soup (RM9.50)


Traditional Chicken Soup Chicken Soup with Bittergourd  and Pineapple (RM9.50). It has the flavourful beanpaste which my dining companions believed the chef could have stir fried the bittergourd with beanpaste (taucu) beforehand. And again I can hardly find this at other places.  

In addition to the soup selections, we also had Stew Mutton with Medlar Herbs (RM9.90) which the broth has gamey flavors which I think how it should be which I liked it actually. Drinking this without lamb taste would be boring. Plus there is no oily surface, imagine the layer of oil in Mamak style sup kambing. The generous chunks of mutton were stewed till very soft yet maintained slight succulent texture.


Fish Fillet with Mushroom Sauce Dry Noodle (RM14.90)


The vermicelli has a chewy texture to it and well coated with the dry soy based sauce- lower calories and enjoyable. While I would have preferred more crispy dory fillet, the mushroom sauce was tad too watery. 


Lamb Special RM14.50- the lamb cubes were very tender and flavourful just like the soup version introduced earlier. Worth ordering.

Curry Chicken RM14.50

Both lamb special and curry chicken had thick gravy texture and adequately rich with spices, especially the lamb was strong in pepper taste.



 Pineapple Chicken  RM14.50- sourish gravy but not overpowering makes this a unique dish.

Basically you can choose to have spicy Noodle, vermicelli or rice to go with the chicken and lamb dishes

The noodle is similar to ramen which has al-dente texture. Would prefer this over vermicelli as personal preference and rice (it was too dry).










Black Sesame Toast (RM3.90)- I can have this everyday. The fragrant black sesame spread was a lovely sweet ending to our meal.


Honey Butter Toast (RM3.90)- simplicity at its best

BBQ Honey Sweet Potato (RM5.50)

Peanut Cookies (RM3.90)


Flower Tea (RM5.90)


Ginseng Chrysanthemum Tea (RM6.90)- very prominent ginseng flavours that awakens the tired mind.



Life’s Milk Tea (RM5.90)- contains no sugar. You will be provided with white sugar which is good for you to control sugar intake. The tea flavours could have been richer though, as I like my milk tea being quite strong.


Selection of bubble tea and fruit juices.


Sarawak Hot Cappuccino (RM5)- my friend had this and commented it had too much milk in it.






Life Cafe
(right opposite Leisure Mall)

55 Jalan Manis 4
Taman Segar Cheras 
56000 Kuala Lumpur

Contact Number: 03-9130 0777 

Website: lifecafe.my