Old estates, new buzz

STRAY cats yawn, before stretching out parallel to the racks of laundry that rust in the setting sun. A block away, two aunties in pyjamas fan themselves as they chit-chat in the public exercise corner, their eyes tracing the younger intruders that trundle by, like guardians of the ground-floor HDB flats.

These are scenes you'll invariably see as you make your way to Sin Lee Foods, a cafe that quietly set up shop in the sleepy Havelock Road neighbourhood a week ago.

Save for a traditional signboard marked with "Sin Lee" in Chinese characters (a hand-me-down from the unit's former coffeeshop tenants that their nostalgia-minded landlord insisted should stay), everything else about the business bear marks of a downtown cafe. Pixie-faced waitstaff wear high ponytails and black t-shirts that read 'Rad!'; a rack of imported Kinfolk and Time magazines feed the worldly appetites of its trendy patrons; and sandwiches on the menu average $15 - 10 times as much as the kaya toast from the coffeeshop down the road.