Dubbel Dubbel is a restaurant chain that serves Chinese-inspired small dishes at an affordable price. They recently opened their first restaurant in the capital, Stockholm, to cater to the growing population in the newly built quarters in Hagastaden. The restaurant’s menu originates from Sichuan cuisine, with an emphasis on dumplings and other small dishes. Customers can choose from three set menus, ranging from SEK 245-345 per person, or compose their own menu. The restaurant also offers a decent selection of beers and wines that complement the food well. However, their desserts are not as impressive, and the service can be overwhelmed when the tables are filled. Despite this, Dubbel Dubbel delivers on their promise of simple and modern Chinese food at a decent price. Their unique feature is a fancy little paper box with different compartments, allowing customers to take leftovers home. Nearby restaurants include Rummel, Etoile, and Le Petit Cochon.
The newly built quarters in Hagastaden in Stockholm are slowly but surely starting to take shape, and with them comes the need for places to eat for the growing population. One of the latest additions is the Chinese-inspired pub chain Dubbel Dubbel, which already has a handful of locations in southern and western Sweden and has now opened its first restaurant in the capital. The basic idea is simple – to serve Chinese small dishes at a reasonable price, according to a concept that invites you to order many different ones to share. A sympathetic approach like this in expensive times, because it is possible to get away with a clearly affordable bill and still be decently fed.
Double Double offers a comprehensive menu that originates in Sichuan cuisine, with an emphasis on dumplings and other small dishes that sometimes border on fast food. The premises are simply furnished, almost bare, with a certain lunch restaurant feel. The only thing that smells like a Chinese restaurant are Chinese-patterned rice lamps in red colors. The large windows facing the “boulevard” that is emerging here in the shadow of the Norra Torren and Nya Karolinska have no further view so far. The neighbors are other, slightly upgraded fast food chains such as Bastard Burgers and Itamae Sushi.
Photo: Krog Commissions
We gratefully note that Dubbel Dubbel offers three set menus in different price ranges – SEK 245, 285 or 345 per person – which both gives the most value for money and makes selection easier. It is possible to compose your own menu, but then you don’t need many choices before you are up to the same price as the fixed offers.
Whoever chooses the large Basong tasting menu will get a good idea of what the kitchen is capable of. This is a choice that can also be adapted to different food preferences – either it is available with pork/prawns, or as a vegetarian where the animal proteins are replaced with tofu, tempeh and shiitake mushrooms.
In typical Chinese fashion, it is “sharing” that applies, a concept that works well here and with a generous allocation of food in the twelve different bowls, including three fresh salads with pickled cucumber or carrots and a couple of sauces. Unfortunately, the two-seater tables are not really adapted to the amount of food, so it becomes really crowded for the couple who indulge in the large menu. The smaller menus contain a few fewer servings.
Photo: Krog Commissions
The dishes alternate between fairly bland flavors to quite hot, where we are particularly fond of the spice-cooked side pork, which is lifted by star anise and aromatic Sichuan pepper and gets an extra sting from chili. The pork also reappears in a small bao that could have been fluffier but still perks up with seasoning from hoisin sauce and coriander.
Chilibean aubergine is pure comfort food: fatty and hot in a way that warms the stomach nicely, like nicely fried tofu with soy-cooked pak choi, which unfortunately lacks both springiness and saltiness. Crispy fried wontons with shrimp or tofu dipped in garlic and chili mayonnaise are also very tasty. Also “fun roll”, a kind of open dumpling with duck wrapped in rice dough with black pepper soy, is a fun and tasty dish.
Considerably paler are the steamed and doughy jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) filled with minced pork, tempeh or scallions. Wontons with shiitake, shrimp or pork bathed in a creamy sauce based on chili oil also fail to lift in terms of taste.
Photo: Krog Commissions
On the drinks side, there is a decent but smaller selection of beers with the Chinese beer classic Tsingtao as an obvious feature as well as an obligatory small wine list, mainly based on Riesling which goes well with Asian food. A good non-alcoholic alternative is a really good green tea with roasted rice in a pot (SEK 45) which goes well with what is served.
The desserts don’t make a fuss at Dubbel Dubbel and might as well be avoided. The sesame ice cream (SEK 85) was sold out for the day on one of our visits, and the chocolate truffle (SEK 55) is the easiest possible. The most worked, deep-fried bao with ginger ice cream and dulce de leche (SEK 90), makes no one happy – a hard-fried piece of the spongy bread with bland ice cream.
That Double Double found a concept that works shows not least the success that the restaurant chain had in West Sweden and in Scania. This is modernized Chinese food that is right in time and suits most taste buds, and a far cry from steak with bamboo shoots or fried shrimp and sweet and sour sauce. The arrangement means that it is also quite easy to create a taste picture with small means that at first glance feels both refreshing and up-to-date.
Photo: Krog Commissions
But when we walk home between scaffolding and containers, it is still with a feeling that something is missing. There are others who have tackled Sichuan cuisine with greater finesse. Surfers in Stockholm and Visby is an example of how it is possible to handle the wealth of Chinese spices in a much more resilient way. On Dubbel Dubbel that ability is often missing. Too many of the servings are anonymous and lack real pressure in the flavors, much like it tends to be in chains with standardized menus where little space is left for culinary brilliance.
Greater care about the raw materials would probably require larger staff, which is also evident in the serving. On one of our visits, there is only one person handling the service and it soon becomes clear that it becomes an overwhelming task when the tables are filled. Waiting 30 minutes for a mediocre dessert can dampen the mood of most people.
Having said that, Dubbel Dubbel still does pretty much what it promises: serving simple and modern Chinese food at a decent price. We also want to give an extra plus because what you can’t bear to eat, you can take home with you in a practical and fancy little paper box with different compartments. Doggy bag deluxe!
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