The Boss

My company’s Cofounder /​Chief Technology Officer was in town, Hong Kong for the first time ever. So our team wanted to take him out for some good Chinese food. After doing some researching online, I’ve decided it would only be fitting to bring our boss to «The Boss». It is a 1 Michelin Star Chinese restaurant in Central, close to our office, so I called (just 2 hours before our desire seating time) and made a reservation. It was super simple and easy, the woman on the phone sounded nice so everything seemed good. :)
Even though I’ve walked passed The Boss many times on Queens Road Center, I had no idea where it was /​that I’ve walked passed it because the restaurant is actually located in the basement. There’s a staff seated on top of stairs, right by the street, and marks your name off if you have a reservation before you start heading down to the restaurant.
The restaurant isn’t big but it was also not fully packed. I guess that’s what happens when Michelin star restaurants are given out so easily here in Hong Kong! There are so many restaurants and too many of which have Michelin Stars, so people are just all over the place. Making it extremely easy to get restaurants at even Michelin Stars restaurants (you definitely don’t see this in the states, it’s hard to get a reservation at such restaurants!). Interesting thing is that everything in The Boss is branded with «Michelin Starred Restaurant», it is literally written everywhere. Which I see a restaurant that prides itself with having a Michelin Star in the big sign when we first walked down the stairs, on the wet towelette provided on the table, along with even a table card saying that it has a Michelin Star, it does make me question is their food or restaurant itself is actually good or Michelin Star good.
We got two veggie appetizers, two vegetarian entrees (one veggie dish and one noodle dish), and one dessert.
The cold eggplant in sesame sauce was pretty good, I mean — what isn’t good with sesame sauce??? Nothing. The eggplant was nicely cooked, but I would have preferred it to be softer inside. Overall, the eggplant was delicious if you made sure there was enough sauce on it… :)
The mixed mushrooms with truffles were actually a pleasant surprise. It was tastier than I thought it would be. The Boss is definitely extremely generous in regards to the amount of truffles they put in the dish.
Now onto the veggies — we got a Chinese vegetable called yin choy. This dish was just yin choy + ginger. It’s really delicious if cooked well. However, I found the veggies to be undercooked /​not cooked fully. The stems were way too hard that I only ate the leafy part of the veggies but biting off the leafs and leaving the stem on my plate. Honestly, not elegant, but it was just too rough. Cannot do! So I would rate this veggie on the poor side, not something I would be willing to get again. If I come back, I’d order another veggie dish, one that is easier to cook I suppose.
Last entrée, truffle choy mien. Compared the truffle choy mein I’ve had at Pure Veggies, I was underwhelmed by this truffle choy mein dish. :(I found it to be more oily than tasty, basically no taste but still oily while usually oily dishes should taste better. Oh wells, better luck next time!
Dessert — mango egg tart! I was tempted to order other desserts, but mango puddings are common (well delicious!) and I’ve never seen mango egg tarts before! Thus, I deceived to choose mango egg tart for our dessert. Everyone got a piece of the mango egg tart (it comes in threes), and it was really delicious! My mouth is salivating just thinking about it. I would totally want to come back just for these little guys!

³⁄₅ stars
Oh god. another Michelin starred restaurant…
Expensive for what it is. expect to pay about $ 40/​head for barely any food. It appears to me that people use this restaurant more for business meetings/​networking.
Hong Kong must be giving out Michelin stars like they are Unilocal stars ;) haha
Anyhow, again, I don’t understand why The Boss is a Michelin starred restaurant to be honest. Nothing was special about this place — maybe there is sitting area and you don’t feel rushed like other typical HK restaurants, but the food was okay. I would not come back.
The only item that REALLY stood out was their black truffle noodles (see pic).

The Boss, a name that gives you an impression of a place that only executives visit. Yes, it’s quite true. The ambience of this Michelin star restaurant does make it quite a decent restaurant if you’re looking for a quiet dim sum place for business lunch.
A la carte dim sum costs around $ 50 – 80 per dish, which is about double the price as a regular dim sum restaurant. Some of the recommended dim sum are baked barbecued pork buns (with pineapple bun crust), turnip cake with XO sauce and pan-​fried rice rolls with XO sauce.
I find that their lunch rice and noodle dishes are of better value. If the dim sum are not enough, I suggest you order some noodles or rice to full you up. Some of the fancier dishes are fried rice or noodles with black truffle.
They have executive lunch menu with selected dim sum, soup, stir fried dishes and fried rice or noodles which starts at $ 200+ per person, which costs more or less the same as ordering a la carte dim sum and a dish of rice or noodles for sharing.
Overall, the food, the service and ambience is great. The Boss claims that they do not use any MSG or artificial food coloring. The only reason why I am not rating this 5 stars is because I’m not a big fan of fancy dim sum with a modern twist. Too much delicacy like truffle and bird’s nest on traditional dim sum isn’t really my thing. I guess to become a Michelin star restaurant, owners and chefs must be creative to attract a crowd who are willing to pay more for dim sum.