Newly opened: The Sky Boss, West Kowloon - modern Chinese
Evening view from 101st floor of ICC distracted us from hit-and-miss dishes at new West Kowloon branch of popular Central restaurant The Boss
Popular modern Chinese restaurant The Boss in Central has opened a second branch called The Sky Boss (tel: 3955 1755) atop the ICC in West Kowloon. While the venue, on the 101st floor of the skyscraper, takes dining with a view to a new level, the quality of the food is yet to reach those heights.
The appetisers set the bar high: both the creamy, fragrant eggplant with Japanese sesame sauce (HK$88) and the spicy stir-fried green chilli with black bean and garlic (HK$78) were excellent. Also enjoyable was the winter melon soup (HK$680), served in the shell of the gourd. This filling dish had a clear, flavourful stock with a generous amount of fresh shrimp and crabmeat, along with lotus seed and mushroom.
The soup needed to be pre-ordered, along with the baked chicken with rock salt (HK$290 for half). We were informed the messily chopped and soggy-skinned bird takes a day to prepare and, if that's the case, the effort wasn't reflected on the plate. We turned our attention instead to the well-balanced, sweet and savoury baked spare ribs with yuzu sauce (HK$198), and crispy prawns with salty egg yolk (HK$238).
However, the black truffle fried rice (HK$208) and stir-fried rice noodles with beef (HK$168) that ended our meal disappointed again as they both lacked wok hei (breath of the wok) and the light dryness they should have. We were glad we went in the early evening so we were distracted from the hit-and-miss dishes by the changing view as the sky turned dark.
Opening a restaurant or bar? Contact us at [email protected]
For this story and more, see 48 Hours, published on Thursday July 9
