Life Cafe Restaurant and Bar

Life Café has a lot of menu items options than even a non-​vegetarian like myself find appealing and actually tasty. I even eat here with non-​vegetarian friends and we all enjoy it.
I’ve been pleased with all of the dishes I’ve ordered and am a repeat offender for the gluten-​free pancakes and the black bean quesadilla. Prices are reasonable, but usually average 1.5 dishes per person.
The «deli» on the ground floor has good take away sandwiches and salads that are great for a quick and healthy lunch (and without the queue at Mana).

Fellow vegetarian May told me about life and so I decided to check out lunch before we come back to try the brunch this Saturday. The place is conveniently located at the escalators. I went by many times and never noticed it. So much about mindfulness. The cozy restaurant is upstairs while the terrace and shop with take away meals are downstairs. I ordered a tempeh burger since I love tempeh and it provides me with some protein. The green salad that came with it was really limey in taste… guess they squeezed a whole lime onto it. The sweet potato fries were not very crispy and I assume it was because they were steamed instead of fried. Nice. And they tasted good and sweet. Didn’t care much for the bun, but the tempeh was crispy, the mozzarella creamy and delicious and the tomato tasted like a tomato. Cool with organic food. The food was a bit «underspiced» and «undersalted» for me and I guess again, that this is healthier… After I looked around a bit a noticed that they offer a lunch set with soup or daal, a main course, tea or coffee and a small organic cookie for only $ 128 ftom 12 and 3pm. Wonder why the waitress didn’t inform me since the staff speaks English well. I tried the lunch set another time and must say, it‘s a great offer. I have tried the raw cakes, the coffees, the shakes, the soup and daal, and the sweet potato gnocchi in the meantime, they‘re all really good, but the raw chocolate cake ist the best. The mocha latte I once ordered once for «dessert» was mild and sweet. Would have loved to give five stars but the burger bun of the tempeh burger isn‘t good and the staff seems always a bit uninterested (service charge though).The place and the music are chill. French, Italian, Turkish, Spanish, etc. songs. The tatami or the table in front of the restaurant are great places to sit and eat and drink and don‘t forget to make dinner reservations. The place is always crowded in the evenings. I enjoy going there between 2 and 5 pm when it is quiet and peaceful.

Great food, affordable prices, friendly staff. What more could you ask for?
I got the pumpkin broccoli soup, it was amazing. And they even offered to let me try it before I got it. From my understanding the whole shop is vegan, I’m not a vegan, but a pescatarian (only fish)
A friend and I shared the carrot cake, it was pretty good, kind of dry though to be honest. Whatever they use as the frosting is incredible though, a great contrast with the actual carrot cake. I really want to try the chocolate mousse cake. I’ve only heard great things.

Stranded in Hong Kong, celiac and hungry. Very happy to find this place!
Pretty standard west coast of Canada food… But in Hong Kong.
Will make sure to come back to visit when I’m in town.

Went in here a few months back wanting something a bit lighter for dinner and the menu looked pretty good. However, for the life of me (pun not intended) I can’t even remember what we ordered.
The food was bland, uninspiring and forgettable. We left still feeling a bit hungry but not in the mood to order anything more as we were so underwhelmed by our dishes.

I am more than a regular here I suppose. As it is so close to my office and the easiest salad I can get. I drink their soy latte and love the big portion. Their salad is one of those chopped salad that hardly to find in Hong Kong.
They have massive gluten free choices that I am addict to pancake and they serve lovely gluten free delicacy for me. They also have vegan egg for your scramble/​sunny-​side/​egg Benedict. Their smoothie or juice do lacks quality that too much water and too light taste.
To play smart is always take-​away. Just order downstairs and you got a pack of greens that are already well seasoned. I am a big fan of their raw cakes. The thick chocolate cake is huge but I can easily finish it by myself. If you cannot make it to the market for organic food. Drop by and get some muesli, quinoa, herbs, granola etc.

I really want to like Life Café. What they preach as an ethos is close to my heart, it’s just that they don’t do it very well. Life Café is all about health eating, using organic and sustainable produce. Those alone are champion causes, but they just need to be that little bit better.
The menu is varied enough to satisfy most needs. As quite a meat eater, I usually go for the organic burger, which is made with a brown rice patty and not a ridiculous portobello mushroom (portobello is not a burger, it is a mushroom sandwich!). The rice burger is large, filling, and tasty enough. Not brilliant, but generally good. Unfortunately, it is a bit dry, and whilst this could be easily solved with a bit extra mayonnaise, or in this case tofunnaise, you will be charged for it, and it’s not cheap at HKD60 for a small dollop. That’s if you can get the waitress to wipe the disgusted look off her face for asking for more tofunnaise.
Ironically, the zucchini stack salad, was the wettest thing I have ever seen. Basically, it was a salad in a bowl of water. It tasted OK, but was just dripping. I ended up eating a bit of salad, then a bite of burger. The wet and dry seemed to balance out!
Downstairs they have a small deli counter with lots of nice treats to buy. There are also some take home produce, like quinoa and nuts. Be a bit careful buying in the deli and eating in the shop or the terrace. Despite providing tables in the deli, and a small seating area out the front of the store, the staff don’t seem to like you to eat your purchases (from the deli that is, it’s not like I’m eating a MacDonald’s there) near the premises. This practice has since been refuted by the management, and I have seen people eat in the store (all Westerners, hmmmm, am I feeling a vibe?), but I recently bought a samosa there, which was very tasty, and was again asked not to eat it on the store terrace. Perhaps I just look like I was eating a dead animal?

A vegetarian restaurant for meat lovers? It must be, I need my meats for a fulfilling dinner. I’ve been to numerous vegetarian restaurants and no matter what how they’ve made their dishes or how full I become, I’ve never been fully satisfied. One of the girls that brought me there is the same way, we both need our meaty dinners.
Life’s purpose is «be the change you want to see in the world.» It sure changed MY view of a vegetarian meal.
The Life Salad is mixed baby greens, carrot, beet, hummus & Life’s dressing. Served with a flaxseed cracker. The salad was served in a large bowl, PLEASE SHARE, it’s a sharing plate, it’s massive!!! It’s organic thus the vegetables were naturally sweet, with or without the dressing. The dressing just enhances the freshness of the veggies.
We shared 2 mains amongst the 3 of us. The Sesame scented tofu, seasonal vegetable & organic quinoa stir fry was very flavourful, it tasted very Oriental… it’s just LIKE Chinese stir-​fry minus the oil. Finding such an unhealthy dish prepared so healthily is just like a fat boy finding hot fudge cake with ice cream on top, then they tell you that it’s good for you… such a nice feeling. The tofu was barbequed with actually grill marks. one of the hardest things to master according to my chef-​friend. The only thing was that they added a bit too much salt, oh well, at least their ingredients are natural and healthy!
We were onto desserts. Personally, none of them appealed to me. Maybe I was just too full to even care at that point.