Restaurant: Roman Tin Fusion Cuisine

Japanese expats have been congregating in the area around Lane 119, Linshen N. Rd. for decades, and it is home to a great number of restaurants serving authentic Japanese cuisine for homesick Japanese. Wei Beer House is one of the most popular of these restaurants. However, proprietor Grace Huang (黃子瑄) is not satisfied with this niche market. A successful restaurant, Huang insists, should reach out to a wider range of customers with new cooking styles.

For this reason Huang opened Roman Tin in May in a quiet alley close to the Grand Formosa Regent Hotel. The fusion cuisine it specializes in makes Thai, Korean, Italian and French variations of Japanese dishes. The simple, refined and elegant decor is also a departure from the style of a traditional Japanese restaurant. "Traditional [Japanese] cuisine is often too expensive for customers during the current recession. Customers also grow tired of a menu that never changes. Fusion cuisine is a good way to deal with these problems," said Hsu Chi-ren (徐啟仁), Roman Tin's chief. "If you don't think up new ideas, you won't survive in changing times," Hsu said.

Hsu's boot-camp-style training under a perfectionist Japanese chef and his 20 years of cooking experience guarantees the quality of Roman Tin's dishes. In addition to Japanese cuisine, he has learned a variety of cooking styles from his chef friends, enabling him to come up with a new menu every month.

Korean seafood pancake (NT$220) is a pancake stuffed with fresh and chewy octopus cubes, spring onions, shrimp and squid and served with Japanese soy sauce. The Korean pancake is made much less spicy than usual, and accompanied by a piquant sauce. Baked potato with roe (NT$220) is one of the most popular items on the menu, especially with young people and Western customers. The imported marinated roe covers potato slices and is topped with ground seaweed. Aside from salty Japanese salad dressing, the dish is unseasoned. Baking it in the right temperature brings out the original flavor of the ingredients, which create a rich taste together.

Beef curry with French bread (NT$250) is a European dish with a Japanese twist. The pure Indian curry sauce is baked with beef tenderloin for up to three days until it attains a lingering aroma. The addition of a small amount of cheese to the sauce gives it extra flavor, and the baked bread softens on contact with the sauce.