First look: Shuang Shuang — a conveyor belt hot pot restaurant comes to Soho

Better start practicing your chopstick grab now...
Ben Norum|Jenny Marc19 October 2016

London’s first dedicated hot pot restaurant has opened this week on the edge of Chinatown, and it comes complete with a sushi-style conveyor belt to help diners pick the ingredients they want.

Shuang Shuang is the first London opening from Fah Sundravorakul, who ran three restaurants in Hong Kong before moving here.

He explains that he felt “a modern hot pot restaurant was something that was missing from London”, and that “the use of a conveyor belt makes it easy for customers to pick what and how much they want, rather than being presented with a set platter of ingredients as at many restaurants”.

Shuang Shuang creates the traditional hot pot experience in three stages.

First it offers a selection of broths — mala (Sichuan chili), black bird (chicken), lamb tonic, fish pond (spicy prawn), temple brew (soy milk) — which are poured into electronic hot pot bowls set in each table. Diners can control the heat of their broths to moderate boiling via inbuilt controls.

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Secondly, there’s the option of choosing your dipping sauce — or better yet creating your own from ingredients including garlic, chilli, soy, red bean paste and sesame seeds.

Finally, diners can pick ingredients for dipping and cooking in the broth as they slide past them on a conveyor belt.

These ingredients range from noodles, vegetables and tofu to meats including sliced beef, lamb loin, prawns, sea bass and scallops along with more adventurous additions such as blood cube, tripe, kidney and liver.

There is also the option to pick varying seasoned minces, which can be shaped into meatballs and dropped into the broth to cook using a special tool.

Each ingredient is priced according to the colour of its plate, as at many sushi restaurants, and range from £1 to £4.30.

Shuang Shuang is open daily 11.30am-11.30pm, no bookings are taken; shuangshuang.co.uk

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