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On any given day, Forest Road in Hurstville is buzzing with locals who know it’s one of Sydney’s best eating streets. For congee and pork chops, there’s Sun Ming, while Golden Sun creates orderly queues for its roast duck. For dim sum, head to Golden Sands. For a formidable seafood pancake, Park Bong Sook.

I’ve also been keen to get across the menu at Canton Noodle House for years but, these days, most Hurstville visits end up in an ocean of broth at Shang Lamb Soup.

Simon Jing and Suki Wu opened their tiny lamb restaurant six years ago. Jing grew up in Taiyuan, the capital of north China’s Shanxi province, and moved to Australia in 2004. Shang Lamb exists to support Jing and Wu’s family and showcase the bold flavours of Shanxi; if you’re into cumin, salt and all things ovine, come on down. (North Shore readers, there’s a Chatswood branch – The Lamb Lab – too.)

For $12.80 (!), you can inhale a soupless bowl of raggedy, flat noodles and spring onion and thrumming with garlic, chilli and soy.

On a recent Thursday night, Shang Lamb was two-thirds full with a mix of solo eaters, young couples and families, which is pretty much the make-up of diners every time I’ve visited. A China Central Television soap opera I can’t decipher is broadcast on a flat screen fixed to one wall; posters for grilled lamb kidneys and cold sesame noodles are taped to the white bricks opposite. Four different groups have a “super lamb” soup in front of them or, as the outrageously cute preschooler one table over from us calls it, “Superman soup”. Perfect.

This signature bowl is the main reason I keep coming back to Forest Road: a lamb bone broth, the colour of skimmed milk, embracing sliced lamb that’s been marinated, stewed, rested, grilled and chilled over the past two days. It’s a clean, complex and gentle soup, honed with spring onion and the just-after-the-rain grassiness of coriander. Add Saxa salt and white pepper to taste and dip a chewy, $2 round of flat, dense bing bread if you need more carbs.

Shanxi has a pasta culture comparable to any region of Italy, and while Jing and Wu don’t dive head first into the dough arts, they do offer a choice of thin, thick flat or potato noodles with each soup (clear potato noodles are your go-to starch for the super lamb). I’ll often down the soup first, then stir a spoonful of house-made chilli oil through the slithery noodles. I’m not sure if this is the done thing in Taiyuan, but it sure feels good on a warm afternoon in Hurstville. This deep, evolving bowl is only $14.80, too. The value here is phenomenal.

Other soups I’ve loved include the assertively spiced lamb-spine option, starring hunks of fall-apart meat on the bone, slow-cooked with fennel, lemongrass and orange rind. Lamb heart, lung and tripe headline the generous “guts” soup, and there’s a rust-red beef number powered by white cardamom, galangal and submissive cubes of brisket.

For $12.80 (!), you can inhale a soupless bowl of raggedy, flat noodles and spring onion scalded with hot oil just before serving and thrumming with garlic, chilli and soy; add a side of cooling smashed cucumber or black fungus to balance the heat. It’s also possible to have a joyous Shang session by keeping purely to the cumin-loaded, barbecued lamb bits. Sweet and tender skewers are three for $6 (!!!), ribs are a righteous tumble of fat, flesh and rustling skin, and I’m not against pulling apart a chonky shank and adding it to the clump-free fried rice.

Can you tell I like the place? One day, I’ll try those advertised cold noodles, too, and roll the dice on the chicken options (grilled wings, hearts and feet). And, one day, I might actually make it to Canton Noodle House for wontons and a different kind of soup. Just a few more rounds with “Superman” first.