Even with the recent change in ownership — Jeff Buerhaus took over both head-chef and ownership responsibilities earlier this year — Walter’s Cafe remains a throwback restaurant. It doesn’t recall a bygone era like the Village Café, with its Louis Prima Italian-American tradition, nor is it holed up in an old hotel, serving 32-oz. Porterhouses slathered in butter and onions. Walter’s takes us back to a more complicated period in American cuisine, the late ’80s and early ’90s, when chefs we were all about the concept of Fusion.

Simply defined, Fusion cooking is when you combine Asian and Western ingredients and techniques in any single dish. Here’s an easy example I saw once that has always stuck with me: Foie Gras Fried Rice. The height of French decadence mixed with the lowliest of Chinese street food, resulting in a powerful statement (which, at the end of the day, might just be: "Look at me! I can ruin foie gras and fried rice!"). You might also recall the presentations commonly associated with Fusion cooking: whole chives shooting all over the place, lots of angles, all of the plate components piled up past the candelabra, three or four dipping sauces on the plate, those sorts of things.

Over the past decade or so, we’ve seen a slow but sure leaning toward the simpler side of dining, cleaner flavor pairings with the emphasis on showcasing the more subtle features of a given ingredient, resulting in much less flashy presentations. I tend to like it better this way, so when I looked at the menu at Walter’s I began to wonder why they hadn’t jerked themselves into the new millennium yet. I mean, come on, this food is just so out of fashion! Hoisin BBQ Flank Steak? Seared Tuna Pizzette? Crispy Asian Ravioli? Did they know what year it was?

Oh, I was thinking like such a dick.

It was one bite into the House Smoked Duck Strudel that I turned it around. It arrived just as I had pictured: the duck wrapped like egg rolls, cut at dramatic angles and placed with their points reaching for the second-story seating area above us, enclosing a bed of greens and surrounded by a grainy mustard plum-sauce drizzle. But damned if those strudels weren’t really, really good. Four were on the plate; I could have eaten twice that, easy. The sauce made for a burst of acidic and earthy flavor, which settled to reveal the piquant chevre filling, followed by the residual smoke of the breast.

So while wolfing down my appetizer, and then tasting the Exploding Shrimp Egg Roll (just that, an egg roll tower that looks like it’s all blowing up, with grilled shrimp, vegetables, and a miso-lime vinaigrette erupting from the deep-fried shell), I realized something important: Cuisines rarely ever die. They’re like haircuts. They ebb and flow, surface for a few years, fall back, show themselves on television, get popular, get lame, and so on; but at all times there’s one population with a haircut that another thinks is way out. You have to keep all the haircuts around because you never know who is going to make that haircut popular again. You think that shag cut all the hip guys have now would have been so popular if the Strokes hadn’t come along? What happens when Vanessa Carleton starts digging fried onion casserole?

Betty Crocker Food Revolution, that’s what!

Anyway, the concept of cooking Fusion can be a dicey one, and with so many contrasting flavors, you’re bound to have a misstep. The Crab and Boursin Stuffed Statler Chicken (a statler breast is just the breast with the wing still attached) with the basil shallot beurre blanc was nice, but there wasn’t a forward enough flavor there to contend with the sharpness of the Frenched bean salad. On the other side, the Pork Tenderloin Noisettes featured a head-on collision of two contrasting elements: a Gorgonzola spinach torte and honeyed carrot ginger marmalade. The ever-present earthiness of the former and the sweet, sour, and bitter of the latter battled it out in my mouth for the whole plate. Not uninteresting, but quite taxing.

Desserts were decidedly calmer, with a pear apple pie and a spice cake to soothe the savaged palate. It was worth it, though, and after having re-introduced myself to Fusion cooking, I think I’d be very disappointed if Walter’s Café had gone the way of a simpler style of cuisine. I need a place where I will be assured to have an exciting flavor experience — there’s nothing worse than boring food. It might behoove management to invest in some new flatwear, as my knife was cafeteria-grade and had a hard time getting through tenderloin, but other than that the service was fine. It’s a fantastic space for such a restaurant, with its two floors, soaring ceilings, and a copper-fish decorated open kitchen so you can watch the cooks pile on flavor after flavor after flavor, and it’s in a location that will guarantee people at the tables.

Who knows? Maybe Vanessa Carleton will stop in.

Andy King can be reached at dinnerwithandy@yahoo.com