Fosters - An English Rose Cafe

It was a cold, rainy Thursday evening and we were a little too early for dinner, so we decided to escape the rain and hide in Fosters and enjoy some nice afternoon tea. Without further ado, we decided to order an English Afternoon Tea Set and another selection of tea for sharing. Due to the foggy glass panes, coupled with cosy furniture and an old-newspaper menu, I almost believed that I was not in Singapore, till I heard the noisy traffic along Holland Road. Our tea set arrived with Homemade Scones, Fruit Cake and Sandwiches, of which the homemade scones left the biggest impression. Warm and fragrant, combined with jam or cream, made it all so yummy. =) Though the fruit cake was a little on the dry side, which made it a little flaky. Since it was a Thursday afternoon (some time before Christmas), the cafe was rather empty, hence making it a good place for conversations. Coupled with the heavy downpour, nice, hot tea and great company, I really had a rather good time that afternoon. If some improvements could be made of its tea set, I will definitely be tempted to return and mark Fosters as a good afternoon tea place in the West.

We have been here before and the lamb shank that I ordered was delicious. My husband and I decided to give it another go. Unfortunately, the lamb shank is no longer on the menu.
This time, Fosters had different set menus. The set comes with soup - clam chowder, main - I had baked cod in white wine sauce, desert - apple pie and coffee /tea.
The clam chowder was alright, not too thick nor too thin. However, it would have been better if it was less salty. The main was a disappointment. The cod looked more boiled than baked and instead of white wine sauce, it looked and tasted like fish broth. The portions have also gone much smaller and my husband joked that we should drop by McDonalds on our way home to fill our stomachs. Overall, Fosters this time time round left us feeling dissatisfied.

I came here with friends in a group of 5. We ordered finger food like the cheesy fries, mixed omelette, cheese platter and pork sausages.

I'm not sure why they call it finger food on the menu. They didn't even bother to cut the sausages into smaller pieces, while the cheese platter came with several chunks of cheese (again, the service staff did not cut the food into bite-sized portions) with several stales biscuits. The mixed omelette was a truly forgettable experience, so dry and hard.

We asked for water many times but the staff chose to ignore us or conveniently forgot. And the cafe wasn't even full! And come closing, the staff seemed very impatient for us to leave.

Only thing good about this place is that the atmosphere is relatively relaxed and there is good music. Not enough to compensate though.

My BF and I have separately seen this restaurant since our secondary school times when we hung out at Holland village. Somehow or another, neither of us dined there before!

Today we were looking for a quiet and lovely little restaurant for my farewell dinner before I return to the states for my junior year in college.

We were greeted by amiable staff who directed us to our seats(Lovely cushions indoors by the windows, overlooking the water feature outside and the rustic grapevines) and delicately gave us the menu. The menu was very well written. Printed to make it look like a newspaper. It also contained very useful information like getting to know your steak and hilarious jokes. After placing our orders, the waitress immediately changed the cutlery to the appropriate ones for our respective meals.

For starters, we shared Tossed Caesar Salad.
Every bit of Romaine lettuce was serenaded with a creamy but light dressing. The bacon bits were proper baked ones and not those artificial bright pink ones. The anchovies were not too salty. And they were generous with the cheese.

The restaurant's soloist came up to us and asked if we were celebrating a special occasion. When asked if my BF wanted any song dedication, my BF asked him to choose and he sang living on the jet plane. (BF was joking that he did not want to make it difficult to ask the Indian gentleman to sing jay zhou songs). His voice was smooth and melodious. A perfect accompliment to a fine dinner :)

My Bf had the Fillet Fantastique.
Prime middle cut of the finest fillet served on a bed of crisp, fried onions, crowned with juicy field button mushrooms
Which was created by their 81 year old chief! With such hearty and lovely food, its no longer he is living a ripe old age! My BF was blown away by the mushrooms before he even started on the steak. Needless to say, the stake was extremely well seared. Even though my BF ordered it medium, it was not chewy. Every bit was flavorful and packed a bite. The marinate was very unique setting itself apart from the many steaks my steak loving BF has had.
The portion was also generous in order for my BF (who is known to out eat my big American friends) to be happily full.

Failing to decide between the different kinds of seafood, I went for the Mediterranean Seafood Spaghetti. Ocean fresh scallops, clams, prawns and cod fish cooked in homemade tangy tomato sauce. The cod melts in your mouth. You could taste the freshness and no "fishyness". The pasta could have been less cooked to make it al dante. The scallops were sweet and the prawns succullent and fresh. Again, the portion was so generous I almost could not finish it. But due to the flavorful and addictive tomato sauce, I finished the most part of it. The sauce was definitely not any of those premade kinds and you could get chunks of tomato goodness in it.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience. For a girl who was dreading western food because she was heading back to America, I totally loved this meal :)

My girls brought me here after on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It was packed with people.A friend of mine was there last Sunday for dinner and it was not that crowded. Unfortunately we did not make any reservation therefore have to share a table of 2 with an extra chair. That was a suggestion from the lady on service.She understood the customer's needs. The man who told us "sorry no table", did not give us any other suggestion. I had to call him since he was around our table to take our orders. I asked for the menu and he told us "there on the table", which looks like an old newspaper. In my mind, oh well how am I suppose to know if you did not tell me.

It was very noisy to sit indoor so we asked for a table outside if there's any later. The lady who attended to us firstly gave our table at the alfresco area within 5 mins after we sat down.

The ambience from outside is very nice and relaxing with the greenery.

We enjoyed our afternoon tea with home made scone, fruit cake and sandwiches that cost $10.50 each plate. I only like the scones which I find it was freshly baked. I thought the place shoud do something better for the sandwich.

Afterall I enjoyed my company most. Just make sure you make your reservation first before hand.

Came here for the 1-year anniversary with my bf.

As expected, it was a quaint and charming restaurant. At first sight, it would seem that there is an ancient looking newspaper placed between the cutlery on the table. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's actually the menu cum a brief write up of the history of the restaurant as well as some educational aspects of etiquette and so on. I was duly amused. Truly interesting.

We ordered the following:-

(Please pardon the spelling inaccuracies and some price discrepancies. can't quite remember at this ungodly hour when I should really be sleeping instead of typing with one eye closed)

1) Onion Soup (Around $8.50)

2) Lobster Bisque Soup (Around $8.50)

3) Mixed Grill ($31.00 if I'm not wrong)

4) Ceaser Salad ($10.00)

The servings for the soups are quite large. 1 soup would have sufficed for 2 (unless you are a big eater). (1) was good. (2) was not that great and probably falls under the category of an acquired taste (Imagine watery peanut butter with salt).

(3) was very good. It comes with a slab of beef steak, A slice of lamb, bacon, mashed potato, broccoli and carrots. The lamb was very satisfying, the steak was juicy and tasty. The mashed potato was interesting as it had bits of unmashed potatoes, which gave it a very nice chewy texture. Very well done. I would recommend this dish to all potential customers. But I would have felt less pinched if the price was in the region of $25.

(4) Portion was good and the food was definitely fresh. Crunchy vege with eggs and bacon. That said, it was way too salty. If you wanna enjoy this dish, don't mix the salad. Or take out the cheese before you mix.

All things considered, we enjoyed ourselves. Service was fine and waiters were attentive (that said, we reached only at 9.00 pm, hence the restaurant was fairly cleared out by that time. Not a good test of how they respond during peak hours). Oh yes, I appreciated the fact that no bones were made about our requests for warm water (instead of the usual 'sorry we only serve sparkling or still water' nonsense).

Finally, romantic nuts would do better to go somewhere else. The settings inside the restaurant can be quite noisy. They were actually playing retro music in the background. Adds a funny and informal twist to the entire setting. Not that I minded since it puts you in a fairly light hearted mood.

love the place, ambience is good, food is tasty, service staff are pretty attentive..the cod fish & chips is so good..

Was in the vicinity after visiting my god-grandpa and brought my family here for lunch since they haven't been here before. Parents were musing about how they haven't been to H.V. for donkey years and reminiscing about how it was like back then. :P

Anyway, we were notified that set lunches were available and so we decided to get those instead of poring through the menu. Plus its cheaper and the main courses option looked attractive enough. We had the following:

Hokubee Fillet Steak Set Lunch $18.50
2 pieces of tendeloin (not very big pieces) served with chestnut sauce. I asked for medium rare and it was served as requested. The steak was nicely done evenly for both pieces.

Oxtail Stew Set Lunch $18.50
4 to 5 big pieces of the tail parts were served coupled with carrot and potato cubes. Mom loved this. I did not really try although I did like the gravy a lot. Yums!

Pan-grilled Norwegian Salmon Set Lunch $16.50
The menu stated "Served with Green Mustard Mayonaise" but its actually just the usual wasabi mayo that we are all more familiar with. :) The salmon was nicely grilled with a crisp salmon skin.

Combo Grill Set Lunch $16.50
The combo grill comes with beef steak, chicken and salmon fillet and is served with mushroom and onion sauce. Dad found the portion just nice as its not GIGANTIC in size to the point of being overly stuffed. Same thing, the beef steak was served medium rare as requested and nicely done too.

All mains are served with a scoop of mashed potato (buttery enough, with hint of some nuts - offhand I cant tell), french beans and carrots.

Besides the mains, all the set lunches are served with warm bread each, a soup of the day (we had ABC soup that day), dessert of the day (vanilla ice-cream and crepe with mixed cocktail fruits) and coffee/tea.

Even though the portions were not of GIANT SIZE but its sufficient enough to be a full meal. Generally the mains were not bad and the meal was not just ended simply with any-o-how C.M.I. cake/ice-cream. Although the crepe and ice-cream we had wasn't anything WOW, but at least there was effort put in. Coffee was also not that bad.

In a nutshell, to have the above at $18.50/$16.50 is simply not bad a lunch deal. Its just not economical for me to travel up west from the North just for this deal. :) Oh, for every $50 spent, a $5 voucher will be given for a return visit.

Service was generally alright, discreet and polite. Just a teeny bit slipshod during the bill payment.

Note: My value rating is for the set lunches only.

4th OCT 2008

Amidst the candle light, the quaint yet classy deco of Fosters, with the soothing live jazz love songs playing in the background, and cosily snugged into their comfortable plush arm chair... Ahhh... This is almost a perfect atmospheric setting for a romantic outing... Alas we were seated near the speaker, which was a few decibels too loud... Thank goodness the singer was good.

Wifey and I came down HV late Sat night (~10pm) and didn't really expect to find such a place. I guess my impression of HV on a late Sat night had been marred by the buzzing crowds along the Wala Wala stretch.

After seated comfortably, we proceed to order - Soup of the Day (Cream of Asparagus) $7.50, Garlic Bread ($5.00), Cottage Pie ($16), and 2x Hoegaarden in a promotion ($14). Initially, I ordered 1x Hoegaarden, but another waitress came and told me we can get 2 for $14 instead of 1 for $11 due to their promotion... Hows that for GEMS!! However, I actually ordered the Fried Potato Skin as well, but that ordered was left out... Grrr... So much for not penning down orders!! At least they were really apologetic about it. I guess this cancel off their effort for GEMS!!

Cream of Asparagus [Rating: 6.75/10]
Overall, it was ok. Definitely had better elsewhere. Could have been slightly thicker. Ambience made up for everything.

Garlic Bread [Rating: 7.75/10]
The Garlic Bread here is nice and has some herby taste to it... Freshly toasted to perfection, this is as good as you can get for garlic bread. It went very well with the soup, tho, the soup was a bit of a let down... Well, ambience made up for everything.

Cottage Pie [Rating: 6.75/10]
The mixed veggies, italian styled, that came with the Cottage Pie was al dante. I actually liked it more than the Pie itself! The beef casserole tasted nice, and the mashed potato was smooth. Nothing spectacular really... I think I would've liked it more if the dish was in the oven for a tad longer, possibly hardening the potato abit to give it little more complexity... Well, ambience made up for everything.

To sum it all up, I think it was a little expensive considering what we ordered is really only enough for 1 hungry eater looking for a decent filling meal. But, would I come back again? YES! DEFINITELY!... For its ambience, and I do have to try their scones tea set... and their deep fried potatoe skins!!! Well, at least we got a $5 discount voucher for our next visit, spending exactly $50 buck on this outing.

We had tea at Fosters on Sunday afternoon. Tea at Fosters lasts from 3-6pm, and that is when their tea menu (which essentially consists of the Devonshire Cream Tea) is available.

Anyhow, it was a party of 5 and we had:

3 Sets of Devonshire Cream Tea (Comes with our signature over hot scones, cake and tasty finger sandwiches accompanied with butter, homemade strawberry preserve and fresh cream with a choice of a freshly brewed cup of coffee or tea of your choice)
3 Iced Lemon Teas
Iced Peach Tea
Camomile Tea with honey
English Breakfast Tea

I like the fact that you could change the tea in the Devonshire Cream Tea set to an iced peach or lemon tea (given that I don’t drink tea or coffee except where its peach or lemon), without having to pay any additional charge.

The scones were marvellous. Warm and (a little hard on the outside and I like things a little hard) crumbly and moist on the inside, they went very well with the fresh cream (I had a ton of fresh cream which is really fattening) and according to one of my friends who put the strawberry preserve onto her scone – the strawberry preserve was very good. The scones were quite buttery to begin with, so absolutely no need to put more butter on them, because that would unhealthy.

The cake they served was a slice of banana cake (one slice per Devonshire cream tea set) with few bits of walnuts in them, and everyone did not like it. It was too dry, and a little dense. What a pity, because I like eating good banana cakes.

The finger sandwiches (ham and tomato) didn’t quite make the cut also – they use wholewheat and white bread for each side, so you kinda have a funny looking sandwich. I would have preferred they stuck to wholewheat (maybe that can be requested, though I doubt so because I suspect these sandwiches are made relatively far in advance) entirely, or as my friend said, just use white bread for the entire thing. I didn’t like the fact that the sandwiches were warm. Sandwiches are meant to be served relatively cool! Anyhow, they were just, unremarkable.

I loved their iced lemon tea – I had two. It had froth on top, and we couldn’t figure out where that would come from. I tried my friend’s peach tea and it was okay, it did taste quite syruppish and she figured that they poured the peach syrup in before making the tea and pouring the latter on top of the syrup – I hope my iced lemon tea wasn’t made this way! The lemon tea had real lemons inside. There were no complaints for the chamomile and English breakfast tea.

Service was okay, and waitresses patient when asked questions like what is the cake, what is the sandwich, how many scones etc. I do think that they could hire one or two more waitresses, because we had to walk to the counter to pay our bill.

Venue wise – I think they’ve done it up quite tastefully, but it’s a little dark inside. So you cant really inspect in detail what youre eating.

We would probably go back there again save for the fact that there are so many other places out there we haven’t tried!