Eatery - Life Cafe (CA)

1242 University Ave, Ste 5, Riverside, CA 92507
Pricing - $ | Dining - Casual, To-Go | Cuisine - American Chinese

I headed over to Life Cafe with a huge group of other people after a long Circle K banquet tonight. We had all had food a few hours before but it was about 11:30pm before we hit up this place. It was great to see that it was open late night because we were quite hungry. I snagged a menu and though I thought I should only get an appetizer, I ended up getting a meal without any drink. I regretted not getting a drink after I saw that the boba drinks came out in beer steins (huge ones at that) and tasted my friend's drink - the tapioca was pretty good!


The starter for my combo was a small side salad and a tad bit of soup. I liked the dressing for the salad but iceberg lettuce is not my thing. The soup needed a bit more cornstarch and probably some more vinegar as it was a hot and sour soup (from what I surmised) but was lacking in some areas. It also wasn't all that hot in temperature.


My entree was a combination plate of walnut shrimp and beef & broccoli with steamed rice. I'm not quite sure what the logic was in pairing these two together though. The flavors did not quite mesh if you wanted to eat a bite of one and then immediately have a bite of the other afterward. The walnut shrimp was quite sweet; there were even pieces of cut-up Asian pear mixed in. The walnuts were too soft for my liking and the shrimp's breading had a queer texture to it. It made my mouth feel...powdery? The beef and broccoli was decent; my main complaint was that it was too saucy/salty. The meal was okay overall - not bad but not phenomenal. Props on presentation though!