Boba Bear

I want to give it a 1 star but I will give it 2 for 2 reasons.
1) the vibe was cool (until the manager showed up, see below), we sat by the door so there was fresh air so it wasn’t too smoky inside and the hookah/​shisha was solid
2) the staff (excluding the manager) was very friendly and checked on us every once a while
Now on to the bad stuff. I’ve been to the LA location so while I’m visiting HK I thought I might as well check out the one here.
The thing that made me not want to come back is the manager. He made the environment very depressing and negative. Manager Ollie was rude and gave BS answers when we asked him about our hookah and drinks. He had an ugly tone when talking to us and never came to ask how we were doing and only talked to non-​Chinese people. What pisses me off is his attitude towards his staff! I’ve worked in restaurants myself when I was young and it saddens me how he treats his staff. I personally heard him call them «fucking idiots» and «go fucking get it» and «shut the fuck up» to his staff. Managers are NOT suppose to be that way and believe me it doesn’t matter how nice you are towards your customers because your attitude towards your staff can be seen by us. I know several tables noticed and had mention about Ollie too. It ruins the environment and i don’t want to spend my money at places where staff are treated like shit. I will not come back as long as this dickwad is there.

Surprisingly poor standard of service and inflexible sub par seating policy…
Ordered a hookah and a drink after I got seated. My table was about 2’x2’ and had 2 metal stools. The hookah arrived shortly and was pretty good, but unfortunately I only got to enjoy it for about 5mins before my friend arrived… She sat down on the empty stool across from me before a staff came over to tell us that she could not sit at my table because I only requested for a table for 1. And he was mighty adamant about this. He then told me that there was a long waiting list… Wait a second… Didn’t I stroll right in and got myself this very table (Obviously suitable for a party for 3+) within a 1 minute time frame? It was puzzling as the staff kept telling me to leave the bar to requeue when I had a perfectly good table here. So apparently, they would rather have empty seats than paying customers in the bar. Well, I guess this was not one of those normal bars where you invite your friends to join you in.
A girl on a stool at the bar was trying to be helpful and said that we could probably sit at the VIP side. I did not mind to have a minimum charge and spend more money but the guy staff told us that the VIP table was only allowed to a party of 6… So I suggested that my friend and I would not mind standing at the bar (I would rather stand instead of sitting on the rock hard uncomfortable metal stools tbh) next to this girl on a stool. Nope, not allowed! At the end, I paid for my drink and 5min hookah before leaving. We felt as if we got kicked out because of how unaccommodating and unreasonable the bar was to its customers.
Hookah bars are supposed to be chill and relaxing but they seat you on hard metal stools. So if you are not one of the lucky ones next to a wall, where you can lean against it, your butt and back are going to be sore at the end of the night.

Could never imagine people would line up for shisha nowadays. Could never expect an actual pineapple on the shish pot for a pineapple shisha. Could never understand how shisha could be such a hip thing — until Kevin brought us here.
So it’s not only gimmick. Besides the glowing shisha pot which changes colors, the menu is impressive. There are a lot of choices and most of them are new to me. And there are a lot of cocktails which are all excellent match with shisha. We have ordered the VLT pitcher and the pineapple shisha — tropical and fruity. The shisha is indeed very good — smelt and tasted so organic and fresh from the fruit. The vibe is excellent, packed with hipsters and everyone is chilled and happy. We really had a great Friday night here. :)

Boba Bear screams hipster. From the line-​outside-​cuz-​its-​a-​no-​reservations policy, to the live Instagram feed showing on their LCD screen inside, you know you’re at an ‘it’ spot. Even the shisha comes in glowing pots that fade into different colors every few seconds, for a premium of course. The seats are half lounge seats and half stools, but mostly stools. So don’t expect to be super comfy here — you can’t really lean back here, and it’s slightly packed together, though still better than Sahara with its Cha Chan Teng style seating. But people still line up here for a reason — the shisha is actually really, really good. Like Kevin L mentioned, the menu dwarfs most other shisha spots except Vibes, and they use higher quality coconut charcoal, which is rumored to last up to 3 hours (yea, so expect to stay in that line for a while). And although we didn’t wait that long to change, the staff were very attentive and changed the charcoal for us for free, whenever we asked. The smoke is thick and the flavor is strong, and no backrest aside, life is good.
The original Boba Bear in LA got its name from Boba Milk Tea, or what we call bubble tea in HK lingo, is not that trendy anymore; so the drink list focuses on basics and some HK twists — we ordered a pitcher of VLT (stands for Vita Lemon Tea, but this one is alcoholic), which tastes great and is actually decent strength. Fun to share in groups. Speaking of fun and groups, if you post a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #bobabear, you will be able to see your post almost instantly, on their screen showing their Instagram — makes for some funny conversation.
Great place to come in groups, if you can ALL arrive early, because 1) the line is small before 8pm, and 2) they don’t let you in if your group hasn’t all arrived. 4 instead of 5 stars only because it’s not as fun to lounge around in due to the seating, I’d pick Al Pasha if I wanted to slouch and shisha in a nice soft seat, but without a doubt, Boba Bear has some really good shisha.

BEST. SHISHA. IN. TOWN. Hands down.
Coming from LA, Boba Bear carries some heavy expectation when it lands on Elgin Street. You probably won’t notice it when you walk past, as it keeps a minimalistic design, but you will spot it from the beginning of the street from 8pm, seeing a long queue waiting for seats.
Now first, know about the house rules. No reservations but you leave your name and phone number to get call when seats are available. All people in your party have to be present, or you won’t get seated. And after you get seated, you cannot add more people in your table. It is some sort of some kind of cheat-​proof mechanism, and is much needed for a shisha bar. After all you can’t really have an accurate estimate of people staying around. So observing these rules seem like the only practical way to keep things simple and keep things running.
We planned ahead quite a few times, and it finally worked out as we pulled an early night sitting in at 8:30pm. Funny we ran into a couple of friends after 9pm and they were way behind a long queue and waited for 2 hours to get a call. The hype is real man.
Shisha. They have the most choices of favors I have seen in Hong Kong, maybe on par with Vibes. You have the choice of an art hookah or a usual hookah, which is more or less about a fancy glowing light underneath the pipe. People love it though, so can’t really complain at all.
We got pineapple mint, and it lasted almost 3 hours. The coconut charcoal was quite unique — it burned slower but smoother, so it didn’t give the «choky» feeling when the charcoal burned out. The shisha took a few of us quite lightheaded, and to be fair we were all quite «experienced» shisha smokers, so it was a pleasant surprise.
Drinks tasted well, and, as an after-​fact, were surprisingly strong. Quite a few of them were milk-​based cocktails (but we didn’t order), which I suspected it had to do with mixing well with the shisha. One minor nitpicking was that the servers were quite actively asking if we needed more drinks. We were drinking at quite a pace already, but I guess pushing for buying more drinks was the only way to break-​even.
Lastly — try the instant Instagram /​Twitter feed upload, pics and tweets will show up at their TV immediately.