The Boss Bakery & Restaurant

When «The Boss» asks you to lunch, say «No!!». Two of us tried The Boss on Sunday for lunch and some pastries for the grandkids. Both lunches were awful – shrimp eggs with noodles, and tufu with udon noodles.
When we asked for more time to decide (menu is messy and confusing) the original waitress ignored us for ~ 10 minutes. Finally another waitress – very nice – took our order, which arrived promptly.
On the way out we got a box of assorted pastries. Very lovely to look at, but basically rejected by the grandkids as being blah and tasteless. Find another lunch stop; this is not the one you want.

I had recommendations to eat here. Cash only. Good selection of pastries. The restaurant interior is bright and happy. The staff were friendly and helpful. The staff spoke English and chinese. Meal arrived quickly. I was expecting a different taste to my dish but it was decent. My companion was happy with her dish. Restaurant had other diners but not to the point of waiting for a table. The other dishes looked decent so I will come back and try when time permits.

Vancouver China Town.
Auf jeden Fall eine Reise wert. Wir waren als einzige Europäer da, ganzen Laden voll von Asiaten, eine herrliches Erlebnis.
Eben gerade hier kann man man chinesische Essen ohne Vorurteile essen. Es gibt zwar kleine Karte aber alles frisch und Lecker.
Im Vorderraum gibt es eine Bäckerei, wir haben Vielzahl chinesische Kreation probiert es war gut.

Another place to get cheap pastries. Cash only. For $ 10 you can get a lot of cheap stuff. Better stock in the morning and early afternoon otherwise only some selections are available. Before going to the show at the Rickshaw I always get a few pork buns for the road as a cheap eat and some for home since I get back late from the show and don’t have time to make lunch.

Being a tourist and a foodie… So coming to Vancouver my friends and I wanted to hit the interesting places in van city and at the same time hit the good food places this was in China town. A bit ghetto. But which China town isn’t? That’s where the hidden gems are! This place had a great bakery and it apparently has a restaurant in the back of the bakery. Had the tuna and onion roll which was so yummy and I tasted the tuna roll which was tuna on a croissant which is a thumbs up!

Oldschool hk restaurant. Curry brisket was awesome. Love it. Bakery in the front with excellent curry baos and more. Try the apple tart

The restaurant locate in CT for decades, and they are the icon of the place. Liked their bakery in the morning, and there are always many baked goods to choose from. They are tasty and at a reasonable price. But don’t expect a top notched experience here, as they are more neighborhood type store. Services are nice, and the staff is patient enough to serve customers.
My favorite is the egg tart and BBQ pork bun. The tart was so crispy when you bite! I can eat a few. Watch for their baking times, and there are three times of delivery during the day. Not sure if there is a discounted rate by the end of the day exist anymore. It is worth checking it out.

This place is a classic! It’s been around for decades! My dad even ate here when he immigrated to Canada 35 years ago!
It’s a HK Café in the back, with a bakery at the front! Their pastries are great, especially their cakes! You can even order one for your birthday or special events!
I love their Daily Lunch and Afternoon specials! They’re soo cheap, well portioned, and filling! And most importantly, tasty haha! They have all your standard HK café fare! Best part is that you can go to the front and pick out a dessert to eat after your meal hehe!
Love it here! They also have a location in Metrotown, which isn’t as good, stick to the classic Chinatown one!

An institution.
Support.
But not as good as Goldstone. Fullstop.

The food is alright. Don’t expect the gods to be shinning light into your mouth at first bite. But it’s a wonderful HK style café, and they are hard to come by.
The baked goods are yuumm. The ladies are kind, and not too harsh. They’re even patient with me and my bad Canto.
I try to go here every time I’m in Vancouver.

My family came across this bakery and café while we were looking for a good place to eat in Chinatown. We were seated right away, and the menu looked quite promising.
I ordered the mini baked pork chop rice with iced lemon tea. I have to say that the rice was pretty good. The sauce was a little too sweet for my liking, but overall it was a pretty good dish. I guess I expected it to be very small since it was labeled «mini», but I still wasn’t able to finish it. Also, the rice was not just plain white rice but was flavored and had bits of eggs in it, which was nice. Also, the pork chop was fried, too! The lemon iced tea was good — a bit better than the «standard» lemon iced tea.
My sister ordered soy sauce chicken wings. They said we had to wait fifteen minutes, but that wasn’t a problem. The wings were quite tasty. Again, I thought it was a little too sweet, but she really enjoyed them. My mom ordered plain french toast; however, after she cut into them, she saw that there was an orange center. She switched it for the regular plain french toast, which made me sad because I really wanted to try that filling! The french toast was pretty delicious. It was fried nicely, but wasn’t too oily.
My dad tried their mini black pepper steak with rice. The steak was tender, and the portion they gave us was quite generous. And lastly, the minced meat porridge came towards the end of the meal, so all of us were quite full. The porridge’s minced meat definitely wasn’t what I expected. I think the meat chunks were bigger than I thought. But, the porridge tasted quite nice overall.
There was constant traffic flowing into and out of the café. I thought it was a pretty decent meal, especially in Chinatown. The waitresses weren’t very nice or pleasant, but the man who worked there made up for that. It was a good meal for a good price, and we even had leftovers to eat for later.

I was really happy to find The Boss in Chinatown after being a fan of the one in Metrotown (too far!). I looooove their spaghetti, but I thought I should try something new by getting the Tomato and Ox-​Brisket on Rice. The meat was so tender, and the creamy tomato sauce in my mouth… and the chewy rice too! AHHHH~~!! AND IT WAS ONLY $ 9!!! The portion was so big, that I was able to take some home to cover 2 meals the next day (I’m not exaggerating. I still have one more portion left). :‘D Their ice cream floats are good too. Nothing too special, but tasty. :)
By the way, on the day I went with my friends… my friend ordered the Oven-​Baked Seafood Dish, and it came with decent amount of shrimps, and it didn’t come in a tin-​plate. So the photos in the gallery may be outdated???
UNFF! WILL BE BACK FOR MORE!

When I come to Chinatown, usually one of the things I am coming down here for is some HK style breakfast (many Cantonese friends of mine would call it the A-​B meal, I will get to that in a second.) There are only two places that I will actually enter for some decent food, here and Maxim’s around the corner. Both are pretty much the same in terms of what they serve, the only difference is location, and the fact I don’t have to walk up a flight of stairs to the restaurant portion of this bakery.
Out of all the ‘local’ Chinese bakeries, I will give ‘The Boss’ credit for having one of the better mooncakes (oh… autumn moon festival is around the corner) yet I have become a mooncake snob lately and have been feasting on some fine ones from across the Pacific Ocean… no matter. Trying their selection of buns lately, BBQ pork bun, pineapple bun, egg tart, it feels they have slipped in quality and taste. They don’t have that ‘fluff’ as they used to.
As for the «A-​B» meal… it’s a breakfast terminology, as breakfast served at these places consist of a selection of A, B, or A + B. A usually is tea or coffee with eggs, bacon and a bun. The B is usually some heavily weighted dish to go along with your eggs, like a bowl of rice vermicelli served with pickled cabbage and pork, in soup, or something on those lines. On this day I ordered just the A, which got me eggs, some mystery sausage that was cut into cute little pieces, and a pineapple bun on the side. My drink, HK milk tea. The eggs seemed a little on the over oily side, and the sausage was generic, not as generic as a package of no-​name sausage in a 12 pack you buy at Superstore, but it was what it was. The pineapple bun, well, the top was crumbling quite quickly after my first bite and was probably the best part of this meal, including the drink of course.
Right now, I would suggest Maxim over ‘The Boss’, which means I will have to go there again, then come back to see if they decided to improve. or keep it as is!

Just went for lunch today at this place.
Been here like multiple times with different people.
From what I remember from years ago their plates are a lot bigger for the same price. Then again I never can finish them anyways.
It’s your average Hong Kong style food around.
I had their mini baked spaghetti minced beef in tomato sauce. Not bad i would say.
The boss was pretty friendly and have checked up on us.

The Bakery:
Lots of tasty buns, from sweet to savoury and everything in between. The danish buns are 3 for $ 1.20!!! SO CHEAP (Chinese accent)! They run out of buns fast, so better get them while they last. Their cakes and pastries are yummy in my tummy and they aren’t overly sweet at all. I can’t get enough of it!
The Restaurant:
Huge selection of HK style dishes and meals for good value. All of their afternoon tea meals comes with a hot drink, for cold drinks add $ 1. No age limit for the kids meal; You can still order it if you’re 65. They got Chinese/​Caucasian style breakfast all day which I usually get. The breakfast comes with a drink, dinner roll/​pineapple bun, eggs with bacon/​steak/​sausage, and a bowl of hot noodle soup, all for $ 6.50. Their french toast is what I order when I want something crispy and sweet. This is not your typical western style french toast. They use two pieces of white bread with some kind of sweet orange colour spread in between, dipped in batter then deep fried and served with syrup. LOVE IT!

Ok, i’m probably a bit tougher than most, simply b/​c these type of HK café’s are a dime a dozen but like everyone says, it’s an institutional, and it’s got the hustle & bustle, nice comfortable long booths, and a place to be seen lol.
It’s good value, fast service, provided you get in there before or after lunch 1pm, otherwise, you’ll be waiting for a good while, standing too.
Recommended:
1. sponge cake
2. shredded pork/​preserved vegetable vermicilli noodles
3. glutinous rice paste, coconut w/​some peanut & sugar filling
4. any of the black-​forest-​style cakes, fruit ones too haha
5. congee
6. grilled chicken w/​lettuce sandwich

My early childhood years were spent in the Strathcona neighborhood. It was a shady place back then, but amidst the memories of our friendly neighborhood drunks and crack addicts… there are memories of weekends spent walking around Chinatown with my grandparents, working up an appetite, and then stuffing our faces with fresh «Bo Lo Yau» (Pineapple Buns w/​a thick slice of butter), crispy hot pan noodles, warm egg tarts, and cups of steaming Horlicks or icy lemon tea.
Even after we moved out to the ‘burbs, my family would make weekly trips to Chinatown. I still come down to The Boss for lunch every other weekend or so with my Gramma. I love how so little has changed here, and we always leave with boxes of buns, cakes, and cookies from the bakery. I LOVE their mini almond cookies, they go perfectly with a cuppa tea on cold days.
The Boss is a Chinatown institution. It will be a sad sad day for many generations of Chinese Vancouverites if this place ever closes their doors.

I used to come here all the time in the 80s and 90s. Now Chinatown is definitely slowly dying off, but the Boss has been around for who knows how long.
I haven’t had the buns from the bakery section up front, but in the past they have always been awesome. Today we went to the restaurant in the back.
Normally you don’t expect too much from the «cheap» $ 6 menu, but the food was actually quite bland. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. But it looks like they’ve renovated the place in recent years, and the washroom is clean.
It’s worth checking out, but don’t have high expectations. The bakery still looks (and smells) great though.

Let’s face it. The Chinese bakeries in Seattle are no match for the ones in Vancouver and Richmond. Rating the ones in Seattle is pretty much rating them on a curve. A 4 star bakery in Seattle, is more like a 2 or 3 in Vancouver, which I perhaps unfairly have higher standards for.
The Boss Bakery is fairly known in Seattle because a selection of their products are sold in the Seattle area at numerous Chinese grocers. Even Uwajimaya carries them. Although they are imported from up north and have travelled some distance, they are still on par with the ones found in the Seattle bakeries. So logically, if you go to the source which I did, my hypothesis would be that the baked goods would taste even better if I bought them at the actual storefront.
As I concluded, I was indeed right. The stuff here is great. The selection which interestingly looks similar to the Maxim’s nearby, is pretty standard for a Vancouver Chinese bakery, but you will notice the pricing here is cheaper than in Seattle. For instance, a slice of their cakes actually costs less than a BBQ pork bun in Seattle. Unreal.
And even so, that does not mean the quality is bad. Somehow it is better. The mango sponge cake is so good. Reminds me of Japanese castella cake except with a coating of mango purée in the small openings.
I have not visited a Vancouver/​Richmond Chinese bakery I did not like thus far. They don’t call it The Boss for nothing you know.

It was good friday. i woke up and got to the Aritiza sale at 8am. and after almost two hours of screaming vicious girls fighting through piles of clothes, I was extremely hungry… not to mention it was raining and the paper bag I was carrying was drenched, causing it to rip… anyways… i was hungry.
I walked into the bakery and the ladies behind the counter were very nice. The buns looked frreshly baked and there was a large abundance of them. From large pinapple buns to mini, taro or bbq pork filled, you were sure to find something that meets your tastebuds. I looked at their restaurant menu to see if there was a combo I could get to go, but everything included soup and noodles so I went with a childhood favourite — ham and egg sandwich, with a chinese ying yang tea/​coffee.
The manager was super nice and was willing to substitute if I wanted to… after about 5 minutes, everything was ready to go. The sandwich and even the drink was packaged in plastic wrap to conserve the heat from leaking out. I got a couple of mini buns for bf and he said they were very good.
As I bit into my sandwich, the softness of the white bread was so satisfying. just the way chinese bakeries make them! There were pieces of lettuce in the sandwich, which was surprising and I did not mind it at all. Part of the sandwich was overly buttery but I didn’t mind too much.
My ying yang was piping hot and they let me add my sugar myself, instead of the usual over sweetness that is presented to me. Overall it was a damn good breakfast. Although a little overpriced — almost 6 dollars, I think it’s okay once in a while.

Background: I’m Chinese raised in Vancouver. I’ve known all the joints in Chinatown since I was a kid.
Food: This is as good as it gets in Chinatown. The bakery is MONEY. Try the taro-​filled pineapple bun. The egg tarts are decent. The diner has awesome lunch specials, where you can get soup, a pineapple bun, and an entrée such as baked creamy chicken on fried rice or HK-​style pork chop on rice; all for $ 8.50. Afternoon tea here is also good. My only complaint is that most of the dishes are scarce on the vegetables.
Ambiance: It’s a diner.
Service: Yell out «m’goi!» for prompt service, or no one will give you a second glance.
Pricepoint: You can eat for $ 10 here usually, including tea or coffee.
Overall: Once again, this is as good as it gets for HK food in Chinatown. It’s a reliable choice and the buns are fresh.