Riders Cafe

Riders cafe owes its popularity to the novelty of being situated at a location like that. I never woke up early enough to try such 'brunch' places, so I had to settle for dinner instead. One advice: when a restaurant is a 'brunch' place, stick to brunch.

I usually include some 'must-try' items in my food reviews, but unfortunately I can't think of any from Riders cafe. I had some very forgettable aglio olio and a bowl of mushroom soup which was really bland. The service staff weren't attentive to us at all. In fact, the waiter that attended to us did not speak much English at all, and when I asked for warm water, he served piping hot boiling water instead. The same waiter was also incompetent in recommending items from the menu, or distinguishing between items on the menu when asked.

Another major disappointment was how the environment wasn't as 'relaxed' as some reviewers claimed it to be. I was surprised to see how the restaurant isn't closed up and air-conditioned because the smell of horse dung from the nearby stables was extremely strong and it really interfered with the enjoyment of my meal. I can't imagine how any reasonable person would enjoy the said odour.

Summarily, the food at Riders cafe was just simply overpriced and I would think that one should just stick to brunch at that place if you can take the smell of horse dung during a meal.

Went for brunch after reading fantastic reviews on HGW. 
Ambience/Setting is really excellent! the cafe is tucked out from the city, full of greeneries and glimpses of horses walking around, it really teleported you out from the city jungle of Singapore to probably outskirt/suburb somewhere in Europe! it was really a welcome change in atmosphere for weary city dwellers like me.
Food & Beverage was alright. I ordered the highly recommended Eggs Benedict, but was rather disappointed with the size of it, i think Amsara's Green Room service bigger portion? (at least thats what i recalled from my vague memory) and i find the Hollandaise sauce slightly hmm.. not nice (dont know how to describe, pardon my lack of vocabulary here.)
Value was okay, I spent $17 bucks for 1 serving of Eggs Benedict and a cup of brewed coffee. A little steep but was well worth it for the ambience.
Service was good. However, as time passed away and more and more patrons came, they got pretty tied up serving full house. Luckily, but then i had already finished eating my breakfast and ready to go! 
Will I come back? Yes for the setting, if i need a break from the city scenary. Not so much for the food though.

Ambience: Relaxing environment away from the hustle bustle of the city life. A nice place to chill your weekend away. Be there early, you might see horsies around.

Food: We had the signature burger, and fluffy pancakes. The burger was topped with generous amount of cheese, mushrooms, prickles and chips. The meat patty was juicy and tasty.

Service: The staff was attentive to our request. They even asked for feedbacks on the food if there was any room for improvement.

The overall dining experience was good and value for money.

 

Service fantastic. Ambience great. Very nice relaxed feeling. Price, pricey. Food so so. Went with my wife. we both ordered fish & Chips as we were in a hurry and felt that would be the easiest dish to prepare. They took quit a while though the place wasn't crowded. The mushroom soup was very nice according to my wife but the fish was so so. The chips were cut potato and very great due to the fact that the seasoning salt was light enough. The ice lemon tea was so so. Overall food was so so but not worth the price came out to $54 for 2 . 1 soup 2 fish & chips and one ice lemon tea. for Lunch might be too pricey. But hey the place was quit, free parking and away from the hustle & bustle. I might just go again and try something else. Hear the breakfast is great. Perhaps breakfast next time.

Reservations are a must for lovely little places like this one.

 

Early morning air coupled with a view of lush foliage and galloping horses, throw in some awesome brews and enjoy them while ceiling fans spin lazily above you... This is absolutely my favorite breakfast venue. This retro, low-key little building is simply too quaint and charming for me to care that it is not air-conditioned or that the location isn't the most accessible.

 

I agree with some who says the food is overrated. True enough, apart from the Eggs Benedict dishes ($14++) I won't recommend anything else, and even the Egg Ben dishes are just regular good and not fantabulously good. Nonetheless, they are comforting and satisfying enough, and when there is all that ambience, I really can't complain.

 

I love sitting on the balcony - but there are only a few tables so stating your table preference when making reservations is necessary.

 

The classic Eggs Benedict is a lovely combination of toasted english muffins, savory ham, perfectly poached eggs, and rich hollandaise sauce. The hollandaise sauce here is done the way I like it - not too tangy from the lemon juice. Some places tend to OD on the lemon.

 

The Norwegian Eggs Benedict substitutes the ham for generous hunks of smoked salmon, and I love that they toss in a couple of roasted asparagus.

 

The Eggs Florentine doesn't have meat so I never order it, but it is pretty delish based on what I've sampled from my friends' plates. Still, as long as I have my classic and norwegian options, I'm a happy girl.

 

All the egg dishes come with lightly sauteed potatoes (tasty), and cute little fruit cups with berries, grapes and little cubes of strawberries.

 

The pancakes are nice and fluffy, but as I am used to whipping up my own pancakes at home I find it hard to justify paying for a stack of those. The berry compote that comes with the pancakes is a tad too sour for my liking but ooooh, melty butter works.

 

I like that they use Grinders coffee, and I hear they use Gryphon tea which is one of my favorite tea brands. Support local companies!  I am also very partial towards establishments which are not anal about iced water. Here, they leave us a generous pitcher of water of the table without prompting. I like to peer at the ladorable ittle horseshoe logo of the cafe stamped onto the coasters through my ice water; its one of the little things that keep me entertained while I wait for my food, which usually doesn't take too long to be served anyway.

 

This is one place that makes one feel very settled and at ease. You get the sense that they want to run a proper and quality cafe but you don't get that commercialised vibe. There is no need to dress up, no need to sit up too straight, no need to pretend to understand the menu. The facade of the building summarises everything about the cafe: simple, rustic, unpretentious and comfortingly consistent.

Saw an article about this charming & relaxing place which is also suitable for young kids and therefore decided to give it a try. It didn't disappointed us as we arrived and saw a muscular dark horse with its caregiver by the road side quietly...we even took a photo with the horse.

At Riders Cafe, we sat at the balcony area where we could see the horses while having our brunch. We ordered omelette and seafood paste... deliciously done. The place is not air-conditioning, but with ceiling fans. Advise to go there in the morning to enjoy the nice scenery and breathe the fresh air!      

I had an absolutely wonderful brunch/breakfast at Riders Cafe last Sunday. The food was absolutely WONDERFUL! Firstly, the eggs benedict. The poached egg on top was wobbly and runny, the ham and muffin were so tasty, I could eat them on their own! And the hollandaise sauce just topped it off just nicely. The breakfast potatoes that came with almost every breakfast dish were crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and looked so cute!The pancakes were perfectly fluffy and soft  ($10), topped with blueberry compote, whipped cream and butter, with a cup of deliciously sweet maple syrup to go along.  I just ate a third of that pancake and went to pancake heaven. *swoons* :DFor more, visit http://littlemomentsofmylife.tumblr.com/ (:
*Just a note though, PATIENCE is required here. the service was slowww...but the food made up for it (:

I'm very simple to please with food - nothing but the best for me, thank you. Unlike Wild Honey's food that tasted like a rock and oil barrel and the great marketing Garden Slug's exorbitant homecooked food which I can cook at home (thanks for fleecing me), Ryder's Cafe is about the same price but has so much sincerity.

This is the second time I've been there and the standards haven't dropped at all. If you have to wait some time, that's because they're cooking it from scratch. The blueberry sauce you see with the pancakes should be made by them themselves. The potatoes were amazing, and this coming from someone who hates potatoes unless it is with the word "chips." In fact, I'm quite sure they make 90% of the things themselves, bread, baked beans, etc. 

Must order the pancakes. The last time we tried buffalo wings and mushroom soup too, which weren't too bad at all. 
The atmosphere feels like we're out of SIngapore, very relaxed.
For more reviews, please go to my blog. 

A true hidden gem, I absolutely adore this place. Really nice surroundings and I love the colonial setting. Food is good and so was the service though they did seem a little short handed, but ain't most popular cafes in Singapore these days! 

Located at Bukit Timah Saddle Club, the salient feature here is the horsies! Unfortunately, it was raining heavily when I arrived for lunch so the horsies were a no show today.

On my last 2 visits, I tried their breakfast/brunch menu (Big Breakie, Norwegian Benedict and Pancakes) which was pretty good but I decided to order from the lunch menu instead today.

The Garlic Prawn Portobello with Market Greens, Onion & Bacon($14++) was lovely. The simple earthly flavours from a Grilled Portobello just gets to me(in a good way).

Seafood Marinara($20++) was unspectacular. The pasta was soft and overcooked with the seafood not being exceptionally fresh either.

If I could choose how I would pass on to the afterlife, I would definitely choose to go by Death By Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream($12++). The Chocolate Cake itself wasn’t really intensely chocolatey but drowning it in chocolate sauce did the trick. Anyway, I guess it’s called Death by Chocolate Cake because it gets really cloying after a while. My advice(even for chocoholics) is plz don’t be garang(bold) and attempt finishing this on your own.

I really like Rider’s Breakfast Menu but not so much for their lunch and dinner ones. It’s a great place to just chillax so it was a pity S and myself had a tight schedule to meet, resulting in a hurried lunch. It didn’t help that service was sluggish today, probably a result of being currently understaffed. For just one starter, main and dessert to share amongst the 2 of us, the bill came up to $60 which is rather steep considering that we could have gotten 2 decent 3-course set lunches elsewhere.  

Bon Appetit!

For the full review/pics, do visit http://yumyumformytumtum.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/riders-cafe/