Cattle Cafe (Edmonds) – Malay Laksa, Bubble Waffles, and Lemon Ribena

Cattle Cafe recently opened up in the Edmonds area (in an old Pizza Pizza location) and was fairly quiet when I arrived just after 11am for lunch. The interior is clean and bright – the big circle prints on the furniture had me wondering if I walked into a time machine taking me back to the seventies.

The menu here is pretty extensive (similar to a typical HK Style Cafe) but with slightly different offerings.

I ordered the Lemon Ribena with my meal (it was an extra $0.50 with my order). You want to make sure you mix up the concentrated Ribena with the soda before you drink it. The soda does a pretty good job of diluting the Ribena (otherwise, it might have been too strong).

I decided to have the Malay Laksa – you can pick and choose your ingredients to make your own laksa but I saw a picture of a pretty fine looking laksa in the menu so I asked them to make it for me (tofu puff, special sausage, and fake crab). This was a much better laksa than what I was expecting for a non-Malaysian place.

The Laksa was $7.95 plus an extra dollar for the special sausage and came in a really spicy broth that cleared out my sinuses. It was a good choice to pick the special sausage because it was both juicy and tender. And the fake crab sticks were quite large. I know they said that it was supposed to come with tofu puffs but I think it was really fish paste. In either case, this was a really good laksa and I just wanted to drink all of the broth.

I also ordered up a Bubble Waffle. Typical of night market stands, these crisp yet airy puffs went great with my laksa but I wound up taking most of it to go because the laksa was so filling.