A Gathering at Bosses at VivoCity

When you make a right at the sushi joint on the second floor of Vivo^City, you will come across a dark doorway with iron bars and a black interior. This is the Bosses restaurant.

Do not be afraid, rather, step boldly across the dread portal and you will find yourself in a very chic and cool dining area. Do not be alarmed as you find that the black menus are chained to the tables in a secret compartments. Move further in and a spectacular view of the sea which is unfortunately blocked by an island with the ancient but intriguing name of “Death by Anal“. It is no wonder the name was changed.

One of the most unique facilities available at Bosses are the toilets. Clean, high-tech and very focused on important toilet things.

This blog almost had an Indiana Jones moment, but decided against it; toilet gods are not to be trifled with, especially if you want smooth passage for the rest of your life. It was amazing to see people testing out the wash area to see how to work the tapless taps. It’s easy, approach and the waters will flow automagically. In fact, this blog observed someone frantically cleansing her mobile phone with the said magical waters.

The point here is this: whatever you do do (har!) in the toilet, do not be distracted and take care not to drop your mobile phone into the toilet bowl. It is simply not glam.

Anyway, if you do make it through the decor, the food offered at Bosses is very interesting. I think it is a nice alternative to the Crystal and Imperial chains. There have been complaints about the lack of complimentary water there, but this blog seems to have overcome that.

Bosses serve excellent tea. We tried the Ginseng and Oolong mix and the White Chrysenthamum (hey Hinata!). It’s $4+++ per pot with infinite refills of hot water. The Ginseng Oolong mix was heady with a strong sweet aftertaste (it’s known as the “Kam” feeling) that lingers for quite a while and the White Chrysenthamum was refreshing.

The appetizers were nothing to shout about.

The crispy duck salad had tiny slivers of duck that you could not really tell if it was duck but the Kai Lan on ice was slightly more interesting; generous stalks of chilled Kai Lan on ice with a Wasabi and Soya Sauce dip. But, meh… it’s been done.

What totally blew me away was the Bosses Pig’s Stomach Soup with ginko nuts, barley, water chestnuts and beancurd skin.

It was peppery (not peppery enough for my taste, but good nevertheless), and sweet because of the barley and beancurd skin. The pig’s stomach portions were generous as were the shredded chicken.

The other great dish was the Claypot rice with Chinese Sausage. It comes to you white and pristine with a sprinkling of meat on top. There’s a bowl of soy sauce with an indistinguisable oil (duck or pork fat?) for you to mix to taste.

What’s so outstanding about this was the Chinese Sausage (“Lap Cheong”), wind-dried and hard, it’s an exercise on the jaws. However, all that work is worth it; rose-scented wine flavours gently fill your mouth as you masticate. There’s no crispy rice, but the sausage, albeit scarce as our claypot had like 6 slices, makes up for it.

Another good dish was the Honey glazed Pork Ribs. This was ordered upon the recommendation of the Captain.

And it was well that we took her advice. Thick pieces of fatty pork ribs covered with a bright red glaze. It was outstanding; not too sweet, tender and juicy. Not for people on a low-fat diet.

The Crispy Aromatic duck was very well-executed (har!). The duck is first smoked to get the flavours out and then deep-fried to get the crispy skin. This blog wanted the Peking duck initially but they do not come in half portions and the Crispy duck did.

The meat was dry and crumbly, this explains why it was served shredded to reduce the need to chew industriously. However the skin was really good, with some shred of duck fat beneath, it improved the meat tremendously.

If you enjoy good noodles – and who doesn’t – you will really like the freshly pulled noodles at Bosses.

The tactility (“QQ”) was good and the noodles readily absorbed the flavours of the gravy. Put in some XO sauce, it’s good to go.

Dessert was a simple Flowy Bun. This caught everyone by surprise as it had a very liquid and hot centre.

This is not your simple tao sar bun. It was filled with a custard cream and salted egg yolks. To some, it actually tasted like salty Kaya (a local coconut and egg jam).

This blog found that the safest and cleanest way to consume them is to simply pop them in your mouth and bite down.

Anyway, dinner at Bosses was pretty fun. It’s a noisy place filled with teens, kids and accompanying senior family units. The service is enthusiastic but harried. There are many things on the menu that this blog would like to try like the entire Congee section with the Oyster and minced pork congee, the special hotpot set looks like especially good value eating for two and the dim sum is reputed to be pretty good but the dim sum service ends at 5pm. All in all, the view at Bosses is spectacular, but it goes unnoticed because the menu is just so distracting.

Bosses Restaurant is at #02-156 Vivo City, Tel: 63769740

Posted on 18th Dec 2006 in Cantonese, Food and Drink

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