With the cops having barricaded the road that leads to the Taj and the Gateway of India, a few college students walk down the Causeway to try their luck at the Strand Cinema end. They get closer than they expected, and see white bedsheets still hanging down from a few windows. A few pictures clicked on their camera phones, they quickly move away. Is it scary? They shake their heads. Terror up close lends itself to silence.

Leopold sneakily opens at around 2.30 pm, away from the media glare, surprising even those passing by. It fills up soon enough. The first order is, not surprisingly, chilly beef and chicken fried rice. It's a meal that does more than just satiate hunger.

Word spreads fast. The waiters skip around as the owners exchange hugs with a few regulars. "You're the first place to open again," Le Roy Peter, a Dutch tourist, tells the waiter as he picks up souvenir T-Shirts. "It's a big statement."

The waiter grins back. "No, we just feel lucky."