Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s largest southern city and largest port, has a storied history. Though much of its development is recent, the historic Hamasen area in Gushan District is full of buildings which date from the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945) and boast elegent Japanese style architecture.
One of these buildings is the Old Sanwa Bank. Built in 1921, it operated first as a branch of Sanjushi-Ginko Bank and then, after a merger in 1933, as a branch of Sanwa Bank. When Taiwan was handed over to the Republic of China in 1945, the bank became a branch of the Bank of Taiwan. Though no longer a bank, the building has been renovated and since 2020 has operated as a café, Shinhama Ekimae.
The interior décor is intended to replicate the feel of the building during the Japanese colonial period. Behind the counter, the wall boasts an edifice of beaten metal and a strange contraption made of clocks, gauges, and metal tubing.
On the back wall, visitors can inspect the door to a historic bank vault. Those who peer through the circular window will see another contraption, made of gauges, glass jars, metal tubing, and lightbulbs, which wouldn’t seem out of place in the lab of a Victorian mad scientist. This machine is used to make the Shinhama Ekimae’s cold brew coffee.
The cold brew is the café menu’s centerpiece and is served on a tray, with a glass and a decanter filled with the coffee. In a hollow in the decanter, smoke bubbles forth from a cube of dry ice.
Diners can select from a variety of other drinks, caffeinated and noncaffeinated, as well as breakfast and lunch offerings and a choice of scrumptious desserts. The highlight among the food options is the Gold Ingot Breakfast Set, which comes with a crunchy breakfast roll shaped like a gold ingot.
