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 

Facebook: Life Cafe Malaysia 

Restoran G-Pot Steamboat 金宝火锅

There are just so many steamboat buffet outlets established out there, I believe customers would like to seek differentiation in what  proprietors can offer. Priorities should be balanced between tasty soup base and reasonable varieties of ingredients with quality, coming with an affordable price tag would be even favourable. Here at G-Pot, you can choose from four types of soup bases, namely- Clear Soup, Herbal Soup, Tom Yam Soup and Pumpkin Porridge Soup. Other than the usual big pot for a table of people to share with, there are other tables available installed with individual pots, suitable for hygiene conscious diners and would just prefer steamboat with one soup base.

While waiting for your food to be cooked, you can munch on some pre-cooked snacks such as fried wantons and fried chicken wings. Pretty good stuff I would say, who does not like crispy wantons with reasonably tasty pork fillings. The chicken wings are marinated with Nam Yue (fermented beancurd) and deep fried till crispy. I enjoyed the pleasant savoury flavour. Although the size of the wings are small, juiciness are still retained inside.

Meanwhile, it's time to check out the varieties of ingredients served at the food counters.Thinly sliced meat such as chicken, lamb, pork and beef are great for steamboat as well as BBQ with butter. There is a strong fishy smell detected right after sliding the freezer panes. For the processed meatballs selection, variety was fine but the quality of fish ball was a letdown. It was rather ‘flourish’, lacking  in fresh fish taste.  Prawns were sweet and succulent but that does not apply to clams.

 Herbal Soup and Pumpkin Porridge

Herbal Soup and Tom Yam Soup

Tom Yam soup had sour and spicy kick but not the best I have had. Pumpkin porridge lacked consistency in porridge texture, as well as very minimal pumpkin sweetness. Herbal soup was below average- lacked richness of aroma from Chinese herbs.   

 Lamb (top) and beef (down) in paper thin slices

 Pork (top) and chicken (bottom) in paper thin slices

Seafood ranging from crabs, bamboo clams, prawns, squids, fish slices and mussels

Variety of sauces for you to mix and match your desired dipping sauce

Most of us loved grilling the succulent and fresh meat slices

End your meal with some refreshing ice-cream, herbal jelly or red bean soup. Drinks are not included so you would have to purchase separately.

Overall there is nothing special that fascinates me, there is still a lot more room of improvement for them.

Sizzling BBQ & Steamboat

Adult: RM28.80 nett

Senior Citizen (Age 60+): RM20.80 nett

Children (Age 4-10): RM14.80 net

Steamboat only

Adult: RM23.80 nett

Senior Citizen (Age 60+): RM18.80 nett

Children (Age 4-10): RM12.80 net


Address

8, Jalan Kaskas,
Taman Cheras,
Kuala Lumpur.

Contact Number
012-277 7238 or 012-391 3818

Restaurant Chang Rai Thai- Hidden Gem in Cheras

Thai food is something that I can't get enough of. The spicy and sour elements never failed to stimulate appetite. I love searching for good food at hidden gem places, it simply gives me a sense of accomplishment. Even better with great food served, along with great people from the OpenRice community. Let's see what dishes we had for that night.

 Thai Seafood Tomyam Soup (泰式东炎海鲜)

If you know me well, I love spicy food so much that my level of tolerance is quite scary A great Thai meal is incomplete without Tom Yam. We were served this as the first dish of the night, good enough to stimulate our appetite.Loaded with ingredients such as prawns, squids and oyster mushroom, the soup looks thick as well as dotted with dark orange oil in a moderate way. I like the texture of the soup- not too thick but just nice to uphold the small amount of fine spices in the broth. Sweetness is brought out in this dish, other than it being adequately spicy and sour.

 Thai Style Green Curry Chicken in Claypot 泰式瓦煲青咖喱鸡

What is not to love when you get a piping hot claypot curry to go with steamed rice? The inviting bright green colour made us look forward to have a taste of it. Generous amount of chicken and brinjals have absorbed the green curry spices, making them even tasty. The curry gravy would have been better if the texture is thicker. I don't mind if the taste of spices was stronger, as some people might prefer lighter taste from the spices.

 Thai Style Prawn with Cream (泰式奶油虾)

By looking at the presentation of this dish is itself very inviting and appetizing. The sauce is slightly different from the usual wet butter sauce, as this looks more creamy and smooth. The prawns are fried beforehand, thens smothered with generous amount of creamy yet light butter cream sauce. Some of us prefer the prawn to be deshelled so that it will be easier to enjoy the succulent prawn meat. I would prefer the butter taste to be stronger, but that's just me

 Steamed Snakehead Fish with Lemon

Snakehead fish is called 'Sheng Yu' in Chinese, believed to provide great medical benefits. The fish used is very fresh, flaky and smooth skin with rich collagen. Some finely chopped birds eye chillies and sliced lemon are used to contribute spicy and sour taste. Adequate sour taste is present in the broth with spicy kick from chilli padi, probably not a spicy level that people can accept if they can't take too spicy food.

Thai Style Fish Maw in Claypot 泰式瓦煲鱼鰾

Again, this is the first Thai style dish that I came across in a Thai restaurant, very much similar to chinese style shark fins soup. The thick consistency of the soup was generously filled with fish maws being the star ingredient. I love that the fish maw is properly cooked, as a result well absorbed with the sourish and wok hei filled gravy. If you like the taste of shark fin soup (not the fins but the soup), you will like this as well as they taste almost the same.

BBQ Pork Neck (碳烤猪颈)

This is a relatively new Thai style dish to me. When it was served to us, I knew that it is going to taste good because it looks real delicious. Up to my expectation (even better), the sliced pork meat is very well marinated with specially mixed spices. I like that it has smoky taste and the meat itself is succulent. Have this with some mint leaves served and you get an enhanced taste.

Thai Mango Salad (泰式芒果沙律)

Shredded mango, peanuts, onions, fried cuttlefish (I suppose) are the complete ingredients that contribute great texture and flavours to make up to this appetizing Thai Mango Salad. The mango has soft yet little crunchy texture to it, which is another great alternative to young papaya used in Thai salad. I like that the fried cuttlefish contributed salty flavour to this dish other than it being sour already, while some additional toasty fragrance from the peanuts scored additional points.

Glass Noodle Crab in Claypot 泰式瓦煲冬粉炬蟹

The star dish of the night goes to this dish, where large red crabs sitting on top of generous amount of glass noodles definitely ready to tickle our tastebuds. The crabs were definitely very fresh, meaty and has natural sweet taste. Unfortunately the good sea flavours did not seep through the strands of glass noodles. They were rather cooked with specially concocted gravy, no doubt it is thick and the owner was very kind to provide more gravy to prevent the glass noodles from drying up too fast.

Thai Style Fish Cake

I always adore thai style fish cake, just like our local chinese style fish cake but with a twist. Fresh grounded fish meat with right amount of spices and seasonings are the key elements in order to be one of the best in my books.

The version here at Chang Rai Thai did not dissapoint me. The fish cake was not exactly bouncy but with the firm fish texture, although a little soft but I felt it genuine. I like the fragrance from spices and extra texture from chopped long green beans. Wish that I could have more of this

Last but not least, we were treated this special dessert which is jelly consisting shredded coconut and jackfruit. Very refreshing and naturally sweet.

Address

No. 27,

Jalan Bunga Tanjung 18,

Taman Seraya Cheras,

Kuala Lumpur.

Tel. No.
03-4291 9306