Want Wulixiang's Homestyle Cooking? Order 3 Days Ahead

Wulixiang isn’t the easiest restaurant to drop in on. First of all, it’s easy to pass by it without noticing it. And once you find it, you’ll discover that a meal must be booked two to three days in advance. All this may strike you as excessive hassle for a mere homestyle restaurant, but if you’re able to withhold judgment until after you’ve tried them out once, you’ll be glad that you did.

The experience is very much akin to eating with a local family in their two-room Beijing apartment – comfortable and personal. The walls are papered in light-yellow stripes. A vase of crepe flowers edged with glitter stands on the windowsill. There are four tables.

Ordering must also take place a few days ahead of your meal. You can either order a la carte from a menu of Shanghai classics or else name a price and leave yourself in the good hands of the kitchen. Fear not: Their Chinese-only menu may not have pictures but English is spoken, so give them a call if you have questions.

Bright orange crab roe mingled with strands of white crabmeat and soft cubes of pale tofu in the xiefen doufu (蟹粉豆腐 RMB 48-78). The whole thing tastes of a silken sea. On the other end of the texture spectrum, a tangle of fried shrimp (youbao xia 油爆虾 RMB 68) features crisp, sweet shells. (Don’t abandon them on your plate – have faith in your body’s digestion and eat them.) Thickly cut chunks of squash softened in the pan with a sprinkling of gently cooked soybeans in the sigua maodou (丝瓜毛豆 RMB 38) are cushioned by what seemed to be tofu of an otherworldly texture. In fact, these light fluffy things are wheat gluten, or “flour tendons,” as they are literally translated.

Wulixiang is homestyle in the truest sense – fresh ingredients, sparse oil and made with the care you’d hope your own mother would cook for you with.

Wulixiang 屋里厢: Tue-Sun noon-3pm, 6-9pm. 44 Xiezuo Hutong (one street south of Zhangzizhong Lu), Dongcheng District (188 1115 7567) 东城区协作胡同44号

Also try: Shanghai Min, Da Gui, Kylin Private Kitchen