Maidina Restaurant

Zhejiang Zhong Lu, at its intersection with Fuzhou Road in Huangpu District, has quietly built up a cluster of Xinjiang restaurants over the years, and Maidina has run there for more than two decades as one of the corridor's longest-standing fixtures. A local news feature covering Shanghai's Muslim dining scene singled out this stretch of road as a genuine halal beef-and-lamb corridor, distinct from the more scattered Xinjiang restaurants found elsewhere in the city, and Maidina sits near the center of it.

The restaurant takes its name from the owner's daughter, a detail that reflects the family-run character of the kitchen, which has operated under proprietors originally from Xinjiang's Ili region since it opened. Red willow branch lamb skewers anchor the menu, thick-cut lamb grilled directly on branches of red willow wood rather than metal skewers, a technique that imparts a smoky character reviewers describe as distinct from standard charcoal grilling, with two skewers commonly described as enough for a full meal on their own. Oil-fried mixed noodles follow a more involved preparation: hand-cut noodles paired with beef and lamb marinated in cold water and coated in potato starch, deep-fried, then stir-fried together with fresh peppers, tomato, and onion for a sweet and tart finish. Hand-grabbed lamb rice, a pilaf built around slow-cooked lamb and rice, rounds out the more substantial dishes, while tiger salad, a raw mix of pepper, onion, and coriander, opens the meal, and a sour yogurt closes it as a palate cleanser after the heavier meat courses.

No alcohol is served anywhere on the premises, consistent with the small, traditional character of a kitchen that has kept the same format for more than twenty years. Qingzhen signage marks the storefront in the manner typical of the corridor's other Xinjiang restaurants, and the local news feature on Shanghai's Muslim dining scene named Maidina specifically among the stretch's longer-running kitchens rather than lumping it in as a generic entry.

Huangpu District's mix of older commercial buildings and newer developments around Zhejiang Zhong Lu gives Maidina a steady local clientele built up over its two decades in the same location, a duration matched by few of the newer Xinjiang restaurants that have opened elsewhere in Shanghai in recent years.