Figure 1 - The pot with spicy soup base is ready.
The Chinese hot pot has been created and spread to entire China for more than 1,000 years. It has become one of the most popular food in China, especially in winter when people need warm stuff to boost the energy and pleasure. Also, hot pot is very flexible because it allows you to organize your pot without some particular rules or orders. As long as the dishes are cooked, you can eat them. Usually,people go to the hot pot restaurants with groups, not singly. As a result, a lot of people view having hot pot as a group activity, not something they can do by themselves. For hot pot lovers, if they go by themselves, it will be weird and embarrasing; if they do not go by themselves, they have to wait and gather a group of people, which could be hard sometimes.
Shuang Shuang is a "dishes go round" hot pot restaurant in the China Town in London. How do dishes go round?
There is a conveyer belt goes round in the restaurant. After you order the soup base, the dipping sauce and drinks, you do not need to order the meat and veggies as usual. All other food will be on the conveyer belt, so that you can just grab them and enjoy, The way they count the bill is counting the plates. As the photo shows, there are 6 types of plates with different prices. The price of plates differs from the food, such as veggies, meat, sea food, etc. Since people in Shuang Shuang do not need to share the pot and the food with others, it's not necessary to come together with others. Although the taste is not the best in London, Shuang Shuang is still the best choice for people who are willing to have hot pot alone.
Figure 2 (left) - Signs on the conveyer belt show the categories.
Figure 3 (below) - The price for different plates
Generally, the typical hot pot food includes veggies, beef, lamb, seafood, tofu, mushrooms and so on. For the soup bases, Shuang Shuang offers both of the spicy ones and non spicy ones. You can 3 levels of spicy soup base to choose, and you have more than 3 different kinds of non-spicy soup bases, like the chicken soup. Besides, there are also some Thai and Korean soup bases offered in the restaurant. In local hot pot places in China, the hottest soup base is the spicy one. In Shuang Shuang, the chicken soup base is high recommended for people who don't like spicy food because it is made by the real silky fowl, also knowns as the black-boned chicken, which contains more nutrients than other soup bases. Shuang Shuang offers the student discount, except the market price set. The 12.5 pounds market price set includes the soup base, the dipping sauce and 3 plates.
Figure 4 - The veggies are fresh and the portion is nice for a person.
Figure 5 (left) - The simmering pot.
Figure 6 (below) - The sesame sauce as the dipping sauce
Figure 7 - You can literally see the process of preparing the dishes.
