By Meredith Brody

After sampling the extensive menus at two of San Francisco's Macanese-Singaporean coffee shops, T 28 and Macao Friends, which like Hong Kong-style coffee shops feature a wide variety of Chinese and Sinofied American dishes, as well as Portugueuse-influenced Macanese cuisine, I was excited to learn of another Singapore-style eatery that opened last year in Lafayette, Kopitiam.

Kopitiam (which combines the Malaysian words for coffee, kopi, and shop, tiam) is located right next to Trader Joe's (thus benefiting from a large free parking lot). Its modest awning-shaded storefront belies its exceptionally pleasant and nicely-decorated interior, which features lime-painted walls above dark-wood wainscoting, marble-topped tables, lazily-turning fans, and pendant light fixtures, conjuring up a chic neo-colonial setting. It could almost be a timeless location from the Bette Davis/W. Somerset Maugham Singapore-set The Letter.