REVIEW: Shuang Shuang, Chinatown

Hot pot is a social way of eating that has been enjoyed in China and the Far East for thousands of years. Centered around a boiling cauldron of flavoured broth, this communal dining experience has featured in small, local Chinese restaurants in the UK but, as yet, has not had a centre-stage location that has caught the attention of the press. That was, until Shuang Shuang came along. Situated in the heart of Chinatown, Shuang Shuang brings this ancient family-style way of eating into the modern with a sleek interior and expertly sourced quality ingredients. 

You start the dining experience at Shuang Shuang by selecting your broth. Each diner gets their own broth so, for a table of two, we were lucky enough to be able to test-run two different broth flavours. The broths are made fresh in-house every day using natural produce and absolutely no MSG. Shuang Shuang can also cater to dietary requirements which is great. There are five broths to choose from at Shuang Shuang:

• Mala - a salty, fiery and numbing broth with dried chilli, sichuan peppercorns, herbs and fermented broad beans;
• Black Bird - a sweet and soothing broth made with rare breed black chicken, jujubes and Chinese wolfberries;
• Lamb Tonic - a sour and gamey broth and one of the most authentic to the traditional hot pot. Made with lamb bones, pickled mustard greens and chilli in lamb oil;
• Tom Yum - a light yet rich broth with an intense aroma of prawns, Southern Chinese herbs and Tom Yum chilli paste;
• Temple Brew - a warming vegan broth made with homemade soy milk, mushrooms, white turnip and dried liquorice root.

We opted for a half-and-half cauldron of Temple Brew and Mala. The Temple Brew broth was lovely and warming with a deep, rooty flavour thanks to the turnip and a woodiness from the mushrooms. On the contrary, the Mala broth was absolutely explosive. Despite not being the hottest broth available at Shuang Shuang it is incredibly spicy with a numbing finish on the palette. That said it was certainly very tasty and was most delicious when paired with light glass noodles. 

As part of the 'Market Set' menu that Shuang Shuang offers (£9.30), each hot pot comes with a dipping sauce. To match the Temple Brew we opted for the house dipping sauce which was a super-savoury sesame butter, sesame seed and garlic blend topped with chilli, coriander, spring onions and more sesame seeds and garlic. To match the Mala blend we opted for the hot and sour dipping sauce which combined Sha Cha oil, sriracha and red bean paste

With each Market Set diners can select three green dishes and one noodle dish. For noodles we opted for ramen-style egg noodles in the Temple Brew and light as air glass noodles in the Mala broth. Though the ramen noodles were great the star of the show was definitely the glass noodles in the Mala broth. The lightness of the noodle grabbed onto loads of the Mala flavour and we didn't seem to run out of noodles throughout the entire meal. Even after finishing all our green plates there were still noodles left in the broth. 

In terms of things to add to our broth we chose to stick with mostly green dishes, which are priced at £1.60 each. The green plate options vary massively from an overflowing plate of greens to stacks of root vegetables, marinated beef rump and belly pork. As there were two of us dining we could select six green plates to eat and chose

• Belly pork (Alex ate this - Mala broth)
• Marinated beef rump (as above)
• Fried tofu, x2 (both broths)
• Choi sum (both broths)
• Mixed root vegetables (both broths)

I found the fried tofu very interesting when cooked in the spicy broth as it took on the heat of the chilli and the sour notes too, whereas when cooked in the Temple Brew the flavour was much more savoury. I definitely preferred the root vegetables cooked in the Mala broth as the intense chilli brought much needed flavour to the white turnip.

For the meat options Alex was happy with both meats cooked in either broth. Shuang Shuang is a good location for mixed palettes and mixed diners, as I ate only vegetables whereas Alex had a mix of meat and non-meat options. If you prefer to cook your vegetables away from any meat products then sharing the broth is not an option, however for us it worked really well.

I would thoroughly recommend a visit to Shuang Shuang to any London foodie and especially those for a preference for Asian cuisine. 

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