Quitting English teaching to go into the restaurant biz?

So my husband (quite the chef and a Taiwanese) wants to open a restaurant next year. He’d like me to quit my job as a teacher in order to help him out with his business. At this point he hasn’t taken any steps, but he’s quite serious about it. I think it’d potentially allow him to earn a higher income than his present job in an office (28,000 a month).

We’re both in our very early 30’s and I suppose this is our working prime. So if we’re going to do it, the time is right. I’m a bit wary about the time and energy that this kind of business will demand from us, but at least we’ll get to see each other on a regular basis if we’re working side by side. It might be worth mentioning, that I don’t cook. My husband does, actually he’s passionate about food and cooking and he’s always looking to expand his culinary repertoire.

I’ve been living in Taiwan for about 3 years, in Taipei. Since we are a Taiwanese/American couple I think it’ll be a bit more seamless catering to a broader clientele. At least our menus won’t be in awkward Chinglish. We’re under no illusions about how taxing this kind of an endeavor will be, as we’re well acquainted with two different local restaurant owners, both of whom have encouraged us to “go for it.”

I’d love to hear feedback from the expat/foreigner community about dishes or foods that seems to be lacking that they think might be “hot sellers.” My husband is a very creative chef with experience cooking all kinds of western pasta dishes, curries (both Thai and Indian). He loves to cook fish and seafood most of all. Well, especially fish. He’d like to, and I heartily agree with him, to be able to offer fresh and healthy food. We want to be fast, quick and convenient (as that is what the local market demands) but we don’t want to be just another “bian dang” shop or some such common establishment.

So what kind of restaurant would you all like to see in Taipei? Which kinds of foods and what kind of atmosphere? We’re not into making it Japanese style at this juncture, as that is not my husband’s style and both of our restaurant owner friends already have Japanese places (a sushi place and a yakiniku/Japanese bbq place).

Any and all feedback will be carefully considered, thanks! :bow:

It might be good to pick one cuisine (Thai), so it’s clear what you do. More Taiwanese know Thailand than India, and I think there is room for more Thai restaurants as the ones I’ve seen seem to do well. You could still have green curries, and you could have fun taking an exploratory trip to Thailand to get some ideas for a good menu and the restaurant’s decor. One trip to the weekend market in Bangkok could save you thousands in decorating costs.

I think the hardest part is finding a good location. Ten meters off of a main street might mean that you’re never seen.

Thai seafood would be a good idea.

You are just saying that HH because you fancy some Thai seafood. :smiley:

Thai seafood?

It’s funny you suggest Thai. We’ve were just in Thailand this past May on our honeymoon (no, not one of those predetermined-itinerary “tours,” mind you). We ate at a lot of local spots in Phuket, where we were staying. Green curry was one of the ingredients which particularly impressed us. We actually bought some and brought it back. My husband was on a kick with that stuff for about two weeks, preparing it every which way.

I could see us integrating Thai aspects and/or flavors, but I don’t think we’re gonna go all out Thai with the restaurant. As far as location, I think proper signage remedies that problem. We live in a busy area and the alley in which our apartment is situated has three restaurants that all do a brisk business. Also, my husband is loquacious, outgoing, well networked and VERY social. He is the complete opposite of your typical Taiwanese male stereotype. So virtually any location within Jhong Jheng would be acceptable for us.

I can guarantee you that we’ll be offering seafood. Probably seafood and pasta with an even balance between multiple western and Asian cuisines. And we’ll for sure be keeping the prices moderate. I think having some familiar dishes will be inviting to the locals, who once inside may decided to spring for something not-so Taiwanese. I’m not the only one who falls for my husband’s charm, he can win people over and get them to branch out. But having some Taiwanese standbys on the menu will be a good lure. And westerners like western food already (and also clear English menus are hard to come by).

We’re still in the brainstorming phase. Tips and advice are like gold to us right now. Although my husband did study business for two out of four years of college, he’s was a pretty bad student. So we need some strategies and tips with getting our business plan going.

By the way, the advice about traveling to Thailand to acquire decorations for the interior isn’t a bad idea. But I think our theme is going to be eclectic. Which doesn’t mean we won’t use some Thai decorations :slight_smile:

While the broadened menu seems appealing and fun, it might be hard to get your point across to everyone. If you do go this route, make sure you can easily (in a few words) articulate what you are all about or people will shy away.

If you have a good venue, might not be a bad idea to put a bar in either.

Best of luck.

Seriously lacking here is decent English fish and chips! - No kidding, there are a lot of Brits that would kill for it! Also decent Thai food is difficult to find, even though the ingredients are fairly easy to source- I can make a more authentic Thai meal than any restaurant I have frequented so far… Yes, good Thai seafood in Taipei would be sought after. Let us all know. :slight_smile:

I think instead of narrowing your options to types of cuisine, start off with a theme/vibe/feel for your restaurant.

For example: I’ve always wanted to open a ‘World’ restaurant, urging expats to bring souvenirs from all over the world and put it in the restaurant on display with their names. And if they do bring in some stuff, there is a discount for their table. Also an atlas with pins to detail punter’s city of origin. Obviously Taipei will have just one marker. (Imagine an LED atlas!, with a marker in each city and then you touch it and brings out a list of names and stuff). Menus would be country specific as well as drinks. But hey, thats just my dream :smiley:

We live in lovely Shillin/ Tienmu. Missing is a cool colonial place for expats- to eat good food, drink nice wines and juices and listen to good vibes. Down on the river would be excellent, but otherwise an outdoor courtyard area with shelter from the rain- we had some places like this in Vietnam that went down a storm, with book share schemes, games nights, food special nights, teachers nights etc. My missus is interested in helping you out with organising and running if you like…

There’s not a lot I miss about England, but I do miss fish and chips. First time I came here I tried it at a few places and found it disappointing. There was even a restaurant that opened on Xing Yi Road, just for fish and chips, and that was the worst of lot. Then again, I’m quite demanding about my fish and chips, as my local chippy back in South Shields - Colmans colmansfishandchips.com/ is often rated the best (sit in) fish and chip restaurant in the UK. Being right on the coast there are another dozen pretty good ones around as well. The key is freshness. The seafood is brought in daily, the specials vary from day to day, depending on the catch, they even tell you the name of the fishing boat it was caught on. It’s that popular with Chinese and Taiwanese students from the surrounding universities that it’s even got a menu translated in Chinese! Damn it… I was just going to write about why it would be difficult to get good fish and chips over here, and I’ve ended going on about it and now I’m really hungry. Anyway, there’s no way you’d be able to get fresh cod, haddock, skate, whiting, pollock, etc. that you’d need for proper fresh fish and chips. If I’m not wrong, most of those species are caught in much colder waters around the northern Atlantic and northern Pacific (and of course the North Sea).

For Thai food. What ever you do, don’t do what some fool did who has opened a place around the corner from where I live. He did one good thing - and that was to pick a pretty cool name, he called his restaurant 泰爽 the English is Thai Sun (I think). I tried it out, but wasn’t impressed. They didn’t even do the shrimp cake thingy, because the boss said his focus was on light and non greasy food??? Anyway, we ordered the green curry and a few more dished. We got a sun tan while waiting - the lights were so bright - brighter than McDonalds, they were giving off heat. The green curry was a total joke. It was a… greasy deep fried chicken leg (like the ones you’d get in a Taiwanese bian dang), served on a plate with a tiny bit of green curry drizzled over it and some chunks of carrot and broccoli at the side :doh: . The spoon it came with was one of those thick Chinese soup spoons, so we couldn’t even scrape any curry off the plate to put on our rice :no-no: . The waitress stood two feet away from our table the whole time… and the “chefs” and other staff (who looked to be in their late teens/early twenties) were just messing around. Throwing stuff and chasing each other… the boss was quite young as well, he didn’t seem to mind what they were doing. He kept coming back after every dish and asking how it was. Surely if he’s the boss, he should know how it tastes? It was a total disaster. Too bad really. It seemed like a lot of money went into the design and outlook of the place. Yeah, Thai food is good, but deep fried chicken legs with 2mm of green curry sauce isn’t :slight_smile:

a) don’t setup your restaurant to please foreigners. They should not be your main target since there just aren’t enough of us. But you should be able to implement several ideas that please both.

b) at least work part time teaching so you can at least pay your bills while the restaurant is getting going

c) it sounds cool to have many different dishes from different countries but it seems like a difficult thing to market to your typical customer

That toilet bowl restaurant seems to do well despite having food that literally taste like it came out of a toilet. How about a gynecology themed restaurant? You can have a seafood-of-the-month special that will literally turn heads

I ate some green curry with crab meat in Phuket this summer. There were huge chunks of real crab in it. May have been the best dish I’ve ever eaten in Asia. Food/labor costs would probably keep this off the menu, but I would eat there all the time if you could somehow duplicate it.

Just on a side note (though I know you didn’t ask for this kind of feedback), I hope you love restaurants as much as you love your husband because it’s a tough business. Success follows passion…

There was a brilliant Scottish one, a few years back and it closed down. It was lovely and right near my work, but the locals didn’t seem to go for it, and well, although it tasted brilliant, it’s the kind of thing I don’t really eat because I actually am Northern English and Scottish and the places where my family come from are the top two in the heart attack league tables of Europe. Although I didn’t know those folks personally, I was pretty sad to see it go because they had obviously invested so much time and money and effort. They mad their own pies which is more than you’d ever get in most chippies back 'ome.

Thai food in Taipei is usually inauthentic and tastes sweet with pretty much every dish full of coconut and sugar, so you don’t get the balance of tastes as in a Bangkok restaurant. It’s sometimes OK tasting. But they thing is, it’s presumably that way because that’s how Taiwanese people like it, so a radical departure from that could be a business mistake. Taiwanese food it very sweet, generally.

There was a brilliant Scottish one, a few years back and it closed down. It was lovely and right near my work, but the locals didn’t seem to go for it, and well, although it tasted brilliant, it’s the kind of thing I don’t really eat because I actually am Northern English and Scottish and the places where my family come from are the top two in the heart attack league tables of Europe. Although I didn’t know those folks personally, I was pretty sad to see it go because they had obviously invested so much time and money and effort. They mad their own pies which is more than you’d ever get in most chippies back 'ome.

Thai food in Taipei is usually inauthentic and tastes sweet with pretty much every dish full of coconut and sugar, so you don’t get the balance of tastes as in a Bangkok restaurant. It’s sometimes OK tasting. But they thing is, it’s presumably that way because that’s how Taiwanese people like it, so a radical departure from that could be a business mistake. Taiwanese food is very sweet, generally.

What’s missing here is a western style Chinese food restaurant…

Fried rice, non-greasy with peas and ham,
Sweet and sour pork, with no bone shards,
Deep-fried ice-cream,
Fortune cookies.

But what’s really, really missing is MY RESTAURANT, without a theme.
It ain’t Chinese, Japanese, French or German.
It’s not local or foreign.
It’s not all pasta or chicken or pizza or steak.

It doesn’t have a theme, just a good chef putting love and inspiration into today’s menu.

This reminds of that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry keeps giving advice to the owner of a Pakistani restaurant.

[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]What’s missing here is a western style Chinese food restaurant…

Fried rice, non-greasy with peas and ham,
Sweet and sour pork, with no bone shards,
Deep-fried ice-cream,
Fortune cookies.

But what’s really, really missing is MY RESTAURANT, without a theme.
It ain’t Chinese, Japanese, French or German.
It’s not local or foreign.
It’s not all pasta or chicken or pizza or steak.

It doesn’t have a theme, just a good chef putting love and inspiration into today’s menu.[/quote]

Ironic that I love the “Cantonese” based Euro Chinese Food also. As with Pizza etc, it has evolved to be so different in the US and UK. I think we just get used to the tastes and styles. I keep trying Taiwanese foods but hate the taste of most dishes. Christ knows what they put in their “gravy” to make it taste so horrible :astonished:

I enjoy Thai,Indian and many other world styles. I am not too fussy. Taiwanese food, for me, is about the worst I have ever experienced . There are a very few exceptions where I have found it edible… but I can’t remember them just now :whistle:
I know many expats enjoy the food here and that’s great for them.
I think you have to cater for Taiwanese customers , as has been mentioned. Just add lots of bones and make a strange tasting gravy,a little burnt black chicken, beautiful cakes that are void of any taste and you should be fine. You can then sell the used dishwater as an authentic Taiwanese soup. :popcorn:

I’m sure there are some decent Taiwanese versions but I miss the western style Mongolian BBQ’s. I think that might be my first request when I go home for a couple of weeks next summer.

There were just two things I HAD to have when I visited the States 2 weeks ago - Brunch and Mexican. So maybe some fish tacos, Chinese/Mexican fusion? I’d definitely be the first in line!

On a side note, my company, DigiTable, provides digital menus (think fancy iPad menus instead of paper ones) as well as POS system and ordering devices. I’ll send you a PM as well, but would definitely like the opportunity to work with you if you don’t have a provider yet!