With a solid week of rain ahead, sinking into a steaming bowl of soup might be high on your agenda. Where better to do so than a place that has their signature soup in their name? Shang Lamb Soup is a tiny Chinese outlet at the base of a residential complex on Forest Road in Hurstville. Their super lamb soup ($14.80) is gentle and creamy with lamb bone stock the dominant flavour. Silky potato noodles and slices of roast lamb mingle with coriander and shallots in this non-polarising bowl of milky, warm goodness. Spike it with the on-table chilli oil if you need something more, or up the protein by crumbling in a five spice boiled egg ($1.80).
While soup should be the hero of your meal you can round it out with BBQ lamb skewers ($6/3) from the Xinjiang region of western China. Painted with spicy sauce, they’re good and tender exemplars. A plate of BBQ lamb breast ($22.80) presented on the rib bones are equally good, dragged through a cumin-heavy spice mix. Slide the spice-dusted thin straps of meat into Chinese mini pizzas ($2/each) and dip the resulting sambo in your soup and you’ll go to your happy place. If it’s the health-giving aspects of eating soup you’re here for, the toothsome woodear fungus ($4.80) comes dripping in antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and lipid-lowering garlic. The lamb fried noodle ($15.80) is a full meal-in-a-bowl with diced lamb, fried egg, and spring vegetables tangled through thin, hand-stretched noodles. Throw in enough chilli oil and it will cure nearly anything that ails you.
