Life Café @Taman Segar, Cheras - Little Tea House that serves Soupy And Noodles Delights

There are not many Tea House restaurants around town these days but at Life Café, they have revolutionized and integrate with a combination of Taiwanese fare with a local twist. We were invited for a food review at Life Café located at 55, Jalan Manis 4, Taman Segar, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, a stone throw from the Cheras Leisure Mall.

Life Café @ Taman Segar, Cheras has its origin from Kuching Sarawak which has more than 18 years history. Its’ décor is reminiscent to the simple classic Chinese tea house setting of yesteryear i.e. wooden stools, bamboo walls and wooden tables. It is also decorated with Chinese painting, Chinese verses and tea pots.

When it started, the Life Café promotes the Chinese tea drinking culture and you can order special Brew of Chinese tea like the Superior Pu’er,  Tie Kuan Yin, Jasmine, Lung Ching or the Mulberry Leaf brew to enjoy.

To start off the night, we ordered the Flower Tea (single). This tea is not only nice to see as you can see it blossom in the tea jug. It is more of a floral fragrant and flowery taste. The strong fragrant of the flowers were very evident in the drink.

Next, we had the Ginseng Chrysanthemum Tea, the strong aroma and taste of the Ginseng in this case have overpowered the floral fragrant of the Chrysanthemum in this drinks.

Soups offer a unique comfort food to most people. It is heart warming especially on cold rainy season. We started the healthy herbal soup offering of Life Café@Taman Segar, Cheras with the Ginseng Chicken Soup With Red Dates. The strong flavours of the Ginseng was very evident in this soup. The quantity of Ginseng was the right balance as it is neither too overwhelming or too bland. One of the most important benefits of Ginseng is that is improves blood circulation.

Next, we had the Ten Treasure Chicken Herbal Soup, which uses the Black Chicken. The Black Chicken takes a bit of challenge to some as not many people like to eat the black chicken. Nevertheless, the meat was tougher than the normal chicken which have a rougher texture. It is claimed this soup relieves the body heat and neutralizes toxin. You could taste the herbal goodness in the broth.

Next, we had the Stew Mutton With Yand and Medlar Herbs. This soup has a strong gamy flavour of the Mutton. This can be very challenging for non-mutton fan. The herbs flavour was strong and the mixture of the gamy mutton taste blended well to make the broth very delicious and heart warming. The mutton meat was boiled until it was very soft and tender.

It is recommended to order white rice to accompany these nutritious herbal soup.

At Life Café, there are many single dishes which you can order like

Lamb Special

Curry Chicken

Pineapple Chicken

Fish Fillet

Spicy wanton 

  

All the above dishes can be ordered with al dente noodles listed as below to go with these dishes like the Shanghai Noodle,

The Spicy Noodle – the soup based is made from a blend of traditional and local spices from Borneo – all freshly and naturally prepared.

The Vermicelli or just plain rice.

For the side orders, you can opt to order the

Traditional Homemade Spring roll – it is minced chicken meat rolled in the bean curd skin and fried – much like the Penang Loh Bak.

For desserts, we had the Black Sesame toast. This dessert with a strong black sesame flavours jam will tickle your sweet-tooth with every mouthful. The toast was toasted to the right crunch too.

Doraemon Theme - D'Dream Cafe in PJ SS2 - Best Restaurant To Eat

Doraemon is a very popular cartoon character from Japan. The proprietor of Restaurant D’Dream Café located at 70A, 1st Floor, Jalan SS2/60, Petaling Jaya (North), 47300 have decided to make Doraemon as its main theme.

Although the theme is Japanese, this café serves authentic Taiwanese street food. There are more than 800 plus Doraemon collectibles item in the shop but the owner confesses to having more than 3,000 plus collectibles at his home and it has taken him more than 30 years to amaze such a collection from all over the world. He sees this as sharing his passion on this little cartoon character.

If you are a fan of Doraemon, this little café is a must visit for you to feast your eyes and your tummy with some Taiwanese street food at the same time.

The first dish we sampled that night was the Minced Pork Rice With Doraemon Surimi. According to the owner they used a mixture of special grain rice which tasted a little hard and a little salty but combined with the minced pork it was a nice starter for the night.

The next dish served is the Three-cup Phoenix. It is actually a chicken dish cooked with ginger much like Ginger Chicken that a new mother would take during confinement. Of course that version, you would probably use sesame oil to cook it, which is much more flavourful. Normally this dish is served with white rice at this restaurant

Our next course was the Red-Braised Beef with Ramen. Although not the best beef ramen that I have tasted I would give this a thumb up as the broth was very flavourful. It would have been better had the chef put in a little bit more meat to goes with the noodle.

Snack foods are very popular street food. Popcorn chicken is the first snack food to be served to us. If you have been to Taiwan, then you would be familiar with the crispy fried chicken of Shilin (most popular place for street food). This tasted similar except it is flavoured with a dash of spice and pepper (reddish orange powder). The addition of the basil leaves adds to the fragrant chicken cubes. Nice bite size and easy to eat too.

Bean Curd is a very challenging dish to cook. In Taiwan the popular bean curd is, the smelly bean curd “Chow Tau Foo” but unfortunately this is not the type serves here. The bean curd serves is the fried version and added on to it, is the meat topping with gravy. Tasty wise it was quite bland although the bean curd was still quite crisp.

The star of the night had to be this dish i.e. the Sweet Potato Fries with Sour Plum Powder. It is a simple dish which was made out of fried sweet potato fries. It was crunchy and was sweet (the chef choosing the right type of sweet potato) and added the sour plum powder which is salty, this dish really raised up your taste bud. Once you start your first fries, it is difficult to stop. It is very addictive.

For dessert we had the pearl milk tea which is slightly different from those that you get from other tea shop. Here, the tea is very mild and the taste of milk very much stronger.

And the last snack food for the night is the Bouncy Golden Sweet Potato Balls. This again is slightly different from other version in that, it is hollow inside i.e. no filling. The outer layer is fried to a hard gluey crust and when you bite, it tends to stick to your teeth – not a very nice feeling though.

If you plan to throw a party for your kid on a Doraemon theme, this is the place to go.

FC Hong
Editor of
Best Restaurant To Eat – http://BestRestaurantToEat.blogspot.com

Date of Visit: 2013-10-09
Spending: Approximately MYR 20 ()