Riders Cafe is a popular weekend brunch spot that is known for almost never having any immediately available space if you show up without a reservation. Called them once a few days in advance and failed to get one – I was advised that one needs to call at least a week in advance.

Tried again another time as a walk-in, and of course, there weren’t any available tables again. Finally, a reservation made on the spot that day for a date two weeks later scored us some nice seats on the balcony, and resulted in a pleasant Sunday brunch.

After visiting Rider’s Cafe, I finally understood its popularity. The ambience is rather quaint and unique. Situated next to the Saddle Club and within a breezy forested area, the cafe has a relaxed, outdoors-y feel to it, which I think is quite nice and soothing. From the balcony, you can even see the horses at the saddle club in their stables and when they are being taken out for walks, baths etc – which I think is pretty cool.

And I found the food to be good and at the same time reasonably priced as well. We mainly had breakfast items; Z the ‘The Usual’ (which is essentially the big breakfast, $16) and I the Pacific Benedict ($16), which is eggs benedict with crab meat.

And actually, these were rather lovely indeed.

‘The Usual’ looked generous to me, with fairly big portions of sausage, bacon, mushroom and eggs. I discovered that at places like Hatched and Jimmy Monkeys, the standard ‘big breakfasts’ don’t really come with much and you have to add on items that you want – which can really come up to quite a bit, price-wise.

Anyway, back to the version at Riders – I remember Z said that this was not too bad.

My dish, the Pacific Benedict, was really enjoyable as well. I kind of dislike semi-hard poached eggs, because when I order poached eggs, I always expect to slurp up some runny goodness.

So imagine my delight when the yolk oozed out beautifully upon the urging of my knife, covering the delicious crisp-at-the-edges-and-a-bit-soft-in-the-centre bread, big chunks of swimmer crab meat and salad with a rich, thick liquid. I must compliment the hollandaise and crab too – the former was tasty and not too tart, and the latter was succulent and retained the moisture and crab taste well.

I also had the Boston Iced Tea, which I really liked. It was refreshing and fruity but not too sweet.

On to dessert. We had the Death by Chocolate Cake ($12) to share, which was absolutely divine. Packed full with rich, chocolatey flavour in a velvety melt-in-your-mouth texture, this warm cake paired with icy cold vanilla ice cream certainly tended to our post meal dessert craving.

Deeply sinful and satisfying, it was.

The brunch menu at Riders also has other yummy things on it, like Bircher Muesli, Brioche French Toast, Seasonal Fruit Salad, Smoked Salmon and Creamed Eggs and more. The milkshakes sounded like they would be good too (there was Peanut Butter Jelly flavour on the menu)! I would love to go back again for brunch, or even dinner, sometime – they do seem to have a delicious variety of dinner dishes too.

Service was alright – it’s likely to often be rather busy there, so don’t expect it to be super prompt – but it was pretty good for the crowd they had to manage.

All in all I really enjoyed the experience, and would love to pay them a visit again sometime!

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Riders Cafe
51 Fairways Drive
Bukit Timah Saddle Club
Singapore 286965
Tel: +65 6466 9819
Website: http://www.riderscafe.sg/

Open from 8am – 9pm from Sundays to Thursdays, 8am – 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Closed on Mondays.