This small noodle restaurant offers the authentic local flavors usually only found in a Shanghainese mom’s kitchen or street food stalls at the entrance to a traditional longtang alley.

Tradition is a hallmark of Xiaolin Noodle Shop, with the owner showing a strong commitment to recreating the local dining scene from the 1970s and 1980s: from the dishes served to the dining ambience; the selection of utensils to the use of local soy sauce.

The restaurant is located in a two-story 1920s villa, though with much of the original decor now indistinct and crumbling away.

Like many traditional dimsum restaurants, diners order and pay at the cash desk and then find a seat and wait for staff to bring their dishes.

Its first floor is small and crowded, managing to accommodate four tables seating 18, with benches cramming in more diners, plus the open kitchen showing the chef at work. Adding to a homey feel, the menu is handwritten on a blackboard.

To be honest though, taking your noodles outside to the street, while not elegant, is more comfortable than chowing down in the cramped and stuffy space inside.

For better dining ambience move upstairs, where the walls are decorated with old Shanghai family photographs going back to the 1930s.

The upstairs menu is also slightly different, with more options, though staff remind diners that noodles can only be ordered on the first floor.

A signature dish is spicy meat soup noodles. Thinly sliced noodles are stewed in pork bone stock with minced pork, which is stir-fried in soy sauce with chili, then topped with pickles. The slight spiciness of the pork adds a rich aroma to the soup, while the pickle — savory and slightly sour — cuts through the meat’s fattiness.

Regular customers know to order the fried duck egg braised in soy sauce as its topping.

Local cuisine connoisseurs should order the signature Shanghai home-style deep-fried pork chop — only 20 are available each day — to pair with the noodles. The pork chop is tenderized and then coated with flour and breadcrumbs before being deep-fried until the outside is crisp, while inside it’s juicy and tender.

The restaurant serves it with spicy soy sauce, a local adaptation of Worcestershire sauce.

If you are not a noodle fan, try the signature caifan — literally, rice with greens — which in this case is rice steamed with Shanghai cabbage and slices of marinated pork. Chef tops the rice with crackling before serving, bringing rich textures and fatty flavor to balance the fresh cabbage.

For committed carnivores, banfan (literally, mixing rice) is recommended.

Plain rice is topped with half lean and half fatty pork, and then braised in soy sauce with dried greens.

Before you tuck in, mix the rice and sauce thoroughly to let it fully absorb the flavor and aroma. The dried greens taste rich after absorbing meat juices, while cutting through the fatiness.

And if you want to sample a seasonal flavor, try the jiuxiang caotou — a spring green stir-fried in baijiu sorghum spirit. Chef uses a lot of oil to stir-fry quickly and ensure the greens are tender. The first bite tastes a little oily but is soon balanced by the aromatic spirit. Jiuxiang caotou is basically only served on the second floor.

Xiaolin Noodle Shop doesn’t take reservations, it’s first come first served.

Xiaolin Noodle Shop

Address: 29 Shaanxi Rd S.

Average check: 22 yuan

Opening hours: 10:30am-9pm