I didn’t expect great service but staff were very attentive and friendly! I enjoyed my favorite laksa noodle soup- i chose fish fillet and tofu toppings. The toppings were fresh and good quality too.
January 7th, 2018
It's been a while since coming to Cattle Cafe, but a friend wanted to catch up so we decided to drop by here for some quick fix. Fish noodles is usually my go to when I'm here. I always find that getting the fish noodle soup options cheaper than the combo+drink options. With the combo+drink option, it is extra $4 on top for fish noodles, making it around $15, whereas the regular fish noodle soup plus a $1 cold drink only comes out to $10. Doesn't make sense to me at all. Anyways, I got the satay fish noodle option today with an cold iced lemon tea. Honestly, it wasn't that memorable.
January 8th, 2018
I was temping at a dental office nearby, so I dropped by for lunch today. I got the Beef Brisket with rice noodle. When it came out it actually look quite delicious. The beef brisket was juicy and full of flavour. Even the soup tasted the beef brisket! There are times where I got this at other places, the brisket were always dry and just tasted like beef and the soup was just chicken flavoured. Definitely, will be coming here for my beef brisket rice noodle fix!
Yes. We,re Eating Again.
+3.5
I find it good to scan the menu ahead of time or I would spend an hour making up my mind. There is a great deal to chose from. To make it worse, while waiting, you can watch photos of the choices rotate through on a TV screen and everything looks good! My partner and I shared a signature noodle combo. The price is a couple of bucks more that the menu posted on Zomato but still a nice deal at $11.49. We had the Malay Laksa soup base with ramen noodles, baby bok choy and fish balls. It is a big serving. I'm not sure how one person would finish it. And it was very tasty. On the side (you can add on up to two sides), we tried the deep fried fish filet (very nice with a tasty tarter sauce) and deep fried chicken wings (only 3 sections to an order; very tasty but not a smoking deal at $3). My partner had a Green apple slush with pearls, which was great! We finished with a black bean desert which was on the forgettable side...reminded me more of Mexican restaurant black beans with some sugar added. We won't order that again. $30 for two for lunch including tax and tips is a pretty good deal. Sleek comfortable place with decent if somewhat distracted service.
Decent Hong Kong style restaurant with a huge menu selection 😮 with full colour pages with photos. It always takes me a while to decide what to eat. If you get some of their meal combos you can also order a specialty drink for $2.
They have a happy hour menu from 3pm - 6? where you can order mini set meals that are smaller versions of the regular menu with lots of snacky options.
There are usually lineups for weekend lunch but if you're a table of 4 its a short wait.
Service is fast and prompt with bilingual staff.
The menu is pretty extensive, but we always seem to gravitate towards the same few selections.
Japanese style takoyaki ($5.99): These were golden and crisp on the outside while soft, warm and fluffy on the inside. A tender piece of tako (octopus) was in the center of each ball. They were generously drizzled with mayo and takoyaki sauce and sprinkled with dried bonito flakes. They’re a delicious savoury treat, pretty similar to the ones you’ll find at the Richmond Night Market.
I highly recommend the signature noodle combo ($9.95). This is something we always order. You get to pick the soup base/sauce, type of noodle, 2 toppings ( additional toppings are $1.59 each) and a drink that comes with it. I love their Malay laksa soup with rice noodle and slice beef brisket. The laksa soup was creamy, and full of coconut and curry flavour. The noodles were al dente and the slices of brisket were tender and delicious. The meat was neither too lean nor fatty. Baby-Paca picked beef tripe for our other topping on this visit, they only gave us a few pieces, and they were pretty standard. The following few times we ordered this, we just got double the brisket because they were so yummy. The bowl of noodle soup was also chocked full of Chinese cabbage with a few slices of abalone mushroom as well. We always get a hot milk tea alongside. The milk tea is alright, strong tea flavour like the way HK milk tea should taste.
The pan fried rice cakes with yaki pork in X.O. sauce ($10.59) isn’t one of our frequently ordered dishes, but it was pretty good as well. The rice cakes were soft and pleasantly chewy, taking on the flavour of the sauce it was pan fried with. The pork slices were flavourful and supple.
Bubble waffles appertain to the category of foods that Baby-Paca and I will never tire of. The bubble waffles ($4.59) at Cattle Cafe are definitely well executed, but rather pricey compared to other places. They’re lightly crisp with a soft chewy center and they’re full of sweet eggy goodness.
We were curious about the ice cream with black glutinous rice ($3.99) so we decided to give it a try. The scoop of ice cream tasted like generic store bought vanilla ice cream, and not the particularly good kind. The glutinous rice was a bit course and grainy. It didn’t have enough of that glutinous-ness.
Service was quick and to the point, but don’t expect much else. The portions are to the smaller side for the price you pay at an HK style cafe, but most of the food I’ve tried here was decent. I just gotta say that finding parking may be a slight hassle though.
One-liner: Tasty food and an eclectic, modern atmosphere
Highlight: Pork Cutlet Curry on Rice
Recommended for: Chinese food lovers
Would I go back? Yes.
Check out my blog post for the full review!
Having discovered Cattle Cafe last summer, I was more than eager to return to the restaurant for lunch the next day. But it wasn't until we called to make a reservation that we discovered that the Richmond location had closed down. Consequently, we set out for their Burnaby location instead; this actually worked out quite well, as it allowed for a short period of shopping to be done at Metrotown before returning to Richmond to prepare for dinner.
Serves its purpose. While this place isn't the greatest in terms of food or service, for me it serves as a decent enough food joint that has a decent menu selection, complimentary beverage (add a little extra for a cold drink, which seems standard practice) at a very reasonable price. Plus the location is super convenient for me. The staff seem young and inexperienced for the most part, so don't expect outstanding (if any) customer service and be prepared to have to flag down staff if you need anything, because they are not usually attentive. But any problems, especially with rudeness, you can reflect in the tip you leave, and if questioned about that you can explain your reasoning. After all, a tip should be earned and not always expected at a certain percentage.
Ben recommended me the Fish Noodle. I had the Laksa broth version with artificial crab stick and squid. I like the springy texture of the fish noodle. There were some tofu puff in it too. Cattle Cafe only accepts cash. Restaurant Review. Leave a Reply Cancel reply. Enter your comment here. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:
Decent meals that are great in portion. Dishes reflect what you pay for. The afternoon tea time specials are the most budget friendly. Usually I'll order the pumpkin soup with hand squeezed fish noodles. The soup always arrives at the table streaming hot and flavourful. I also think that their bubble waffle is pretty delicious too.
Not a must try place, but of you are craving for soup noodles and Chinese cha chan teng cuisine that won't break the bank, come give this location a try!
Quick, cheap and yummy. This is not fine dining so don't come in expecting great service(or clean bathrooms for that matter) but Cattle is one of my favorite places for a speedy affordable lunch. My husband and I can share a regular sized soup and we both get totally full. my top choices are satay with the hand squeezed fish noodles, brisket and bean curd or laska they are both excellent. We have been here more times than I can count and the food is consistently good, even with a tip and drink for the 2 of us its always under 20$. One draw back is they only accept cash and one of us ends up walking across the street to the bank machine.
No doubt one of my favourite Asian cafes - great food and decent prices. Only downside is the service and how tiny the restaurant is. Love their Japanese ramen in satay soup with beef brisket slices + mango milk tea!
Taiwanese Cafe on a rainy afternoon. The place was not full when we got there but got busy quite fast so lucky we ordered before the rush of other people did the same.
Had the Boneless Chicken & Ham in Coconut Cream Sauce with Rice. It was alright, typical chinese cafe food with the cream sauce having a faint taste of coconut though the presentation of the food was really nice and it tasted fine as well.
With my order came with a drink which I had the hot mango milk tea and that was really good.. Usually I have the regular milk tea but this really tasted like mango with a faint taste of tea!
Cheap on the condiments. This was pretty good in terms of food, but they were shy to put the food together.
I have gone to a place with the same idea. You pick the soup, the noodle and the two condiments. However, they have a side menu, that you have to pay more for certain things and not included in the meal. So does that really mean that you get a free condiment? Hmmm.........
I didn't quite get the concept if they didn't want to put stuff in the noodle. So you really have to pay more, where as other restaurants with the same concept don't have that kind of extra expense.
The service was really good. I found that the people there were really nice, both times I was there.
The ambiance is the same as any chinese cafe. Not outstanding, but pretty good for a place to get together and eat.
The price was pretty good too, but I could get better for the same price.
Gets busy really quicky.. Went there today when it opened and it gets busy within the first half-hour. Considering the good value of the dishes, it's not hard to see why. The food is quite good at a very reasonable price. The service has a bit to be desired (the food came quickly but we never got any tea refills until we had to ask twice for it). But when all the meals are under ten bucks, it's not that bad.
I like it, the place is neat and clean, the lighting is bright, the food is excellence, it's a very good HK style cafe, of course it's a chinese cafe, so dont expect a five star service, u come, u eat, u enjoy, and u go home...I'll surely come back here
Go for their soups. I come here for a big bowl of noodles for comfort food, I understand the other reviewers doesn't like the service from the staff, I'd say this is what you'd get from a typical Chinese eatery, as long as my food is tasty and the staff are responsive, I'm not complaining.
We tried noodles. It tasted good, and it's really big portion. But had to wait for like half an hour on a weekday, and it's super crowded!
They did improve in every way.... The food is more delicious, The drinks are always good. There big improvement are the services. The are more polite now. Keep on the good works...
p.s. this is the few positive comment that I made to all the restaurants...
Food-voice. Independent Opinion
+4.5
NOODLE SOUP ONLY. So many people going to the Cattle Café and most of them wrote favorable reviews about them on the other food review site. I though I have to try it for myself.
Most of this type of restaurant operate and own by Taiwanese, they should not group as HK style café. The Taiwanese are very good operator for these type of restaurant, so is the Pearl Tea store, they all started by the Taiwanese few years ago.
Most of the ingredient are precooked and put together whatever you order and add the soup based whatever you order which are also already cooked. It's very tasty and good variety to choice from the menu. For $7.25 per bowel, it's not cheap and yet is not expense. Its much taster then the food served in the Vietnam Noodle restaurant. The atmosphere is much to be desire and service is very poor. All in all, Foods are fresh and price is reasonable, its worth of our business, I will be back and recommended to others.
On my second visit 2 days ago, I try their HOT POT , as mention earlier, this is Taiwanese style food restaurant, their HOT POT (beef brisket with lo bak) is nothing more then a BEEF BRISKET WITH LO BAK SOUP, nothing like the HK style, I was very disappointed. They charge $9.75 for this dish which should be cheaper than a bowl of noodle soup. The noodle soup has more ingredients and taster than the HOT POT. Be careful what you order here other than the NOODLE SOUP which they are good for.
The food was well priced and the portion is quite big.
The Pork Chop w Bacon Onion Glaze far exceeded my expectations! The glaze was delicious! It was creamy, slightly sweet and just the right consistency. There were a lot of onion pieces in the glaze. As for the bacon, there were only two measly piec
After a weekend of fast food I was most insistent on getting something cooked to order: bubblingly warm and mildly wholesome. What I craved for was noodles in a rich broth-like soup, perfect on a foggy Vancouver day. “Cattle Cafe” was on route home and I knew they had laksa (one of my all time favourite dishes). So with convenient parking around the block I pulled in for some take out. Right as you enter a sign at the counter directs you to write your name in their ledger, in order to be seated. This is here despite the presence of several employees behind and around their bar/cash desk. I took it as an accurate indication of the service that was to come. I read the menu by the counter and stood awkwardly by the door for my order to come to pass. Without designated waiting seats or being offered a table to loiter at, I was constantly in the way; as guests came in and others left. Not that there was room for either, but some consideration would have been nice. The restaurant was shaped
Cattle Cafe is pretty much your run of the mill Hong Kong style cafe. However, if you’re at Metrotown but don’t want to shell out a whole lot of cash for food court eats, there’s plenty of restaurants around! (like Uncle Willy’s, Curry King, etc). On this occasion, I set my sights on Cattle Cafe! For $8.75, I got the curry boneless chicken on rice. Although so mild to the point where it’s not spicy at all, it was quite tasty! To boot, the chicken was very savoury, though I wish they cut off the skin, and tender that it just melted in the curry. For $2 more, you can pick a drink off their specialty drinks menu (all of the bubble tea, smoothies, milkshakes, etc.) Although it’s probably powdered, it’s not a bad way to wash down your meal; this drink’s the red bean milk slush.
BitterSweetLife Food
+4.5
Overall, will go back and try more stuff!! Only downsides are the lack of space (it's a small restaurant) and the "Cash only" rule. Otherwise, very good, I loved the food I got, so I felt the wait for it was worth it! Really wanna try their hot pot, but it's only offered at night, so maybe I'll go one day for dinner! *excited little girl* hehehe
Don't expect much in terms of ambience or service; both of which are always a bust at HK Cafes (in fact, it took a good five minutes to flag down a waitress for our order given our corner table position). But for a sub $10 meal (tax and tip included), you can't go wrong with the tremendous value these soup noodle combinations bring to the table.
The broth was rich and creamy from the addition of coconut milk and it packed quite a bit of heat. It always makes me happy when spicy things actually come out spicy and they aren’t watered down.
Cattle Cafe….cattle cafe.. have you been to Cattle Cafe yet?? That's what people kept asking me.. including Marv!! So finally 1 Sunday morning, Marv took me there. I bet he regrets it now..more on this later We arrived before it opened and I'm glad we did! Even though it was still closed, there were more customers coming along to see if it was open yet! All these people were making me anxious to see what was so great about this place! Cattle Cafe 4885 Kingsway, Burnaby BC Tel#: (604) 430-8686 Shortly after 11, we were finally let in. I guess that's why they call it Cattle…. they hoard you in like cattle.. haha just kidding. We ended up being seated first, and the place was full by 11:20! Yes, I will say it again, thanks Marv for making me come here early! For our drinks, I decided to go with the Iced Milk Tea (above left), and Marv went with the Papaya Smoothie (above right). Y'know how sometimes in hk style cafes you receive a drink that's warm wit
I was meeting up a friend in Burnaby for lunch and we decided to go to the Cattle Cafe which was located in the space where Death By Chocolate used to be. Cattle Cafe and Cattle Hot Pot (Richmond) are sister restaurants and owned by the same person. Cattle Cafe is a Hong Kong Style cafe and is known for their noodle selection. There is a large menu with a variety of items where you can customize what type of soup noodles you want to eat. And the portions of the noodles here are huge! But unfortunately, I wasn't too hungry and my friend isn't much of a noodle person. So we didn't order any soup noodles. I would like to go back and try that one day. For lunch, I just had a luncheon meat & egg sandwich and chicken wings. I have this strange liking to Spam and egg sandwiches... My boyfriend never understood that. Maybe it's because I grew up eating it and it's comforting and reminds me of my childhood. My friend had the chicken & rice and also the chicken wings. My sandwich also came with
Our friends have suggested to have a quick meal at Cattle Cafe in Burnaby. They thought this place is one of the better places for HK-style cafe. We arrived at about 5:15pm and there was only one other table. Then, about twenty minutes later, this place w
We were there shortly after 11am, but there was already a huge lineup. My first thought was 'geeze, is it that good or does nobody sleep in anymore"
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