Yesterday was an excellent day. Not only was it National Margarita day (which means today is National the day after National Margarita Day), but I also disgusted a t:e reader by using store-bought eggs.  Presumably this individual pulls them out of his hens' claocas moments before cooking breakfast.  Those of us who do not live on or near a farm have to rely on places like Whole Foods for our eggs. I'm coming to terms with this. 

But I did go ahead and totally put that egg on that pizza.  Last night's selection of pizze (we speak Italian here at t:e) included a thyme/mushroom/taleggio/egg pie.

The saturation/color in this photo were not exaggerated

Gotcha, didn't I.  After taste testing the Skinnygirl margarita, you don't really expect me to put this stuff in my mouth, do you?

This Bikini Girl Margarita caught my eye at Bottle King last week.  Not because it looked interesting, but because it was glowing.

201 Magazine, the big, glossy magazine that you see in grocery stores (or in the mail...they seem to send it to people for free in addition to selling it), released their yearly readers poll. It's sprinkled with "Editor's picks" and "Celebrity picks."  I'm not sure I care what these folks have to say about restaurants, but I guess their opinion is neither better nor worse than that of any random person.

Either way, as usual, many of the restaurant picks are wrong, or just bizarre.

As I sometimes do, I'm going to put on my smug curmudgeon hat and provide the correct answers here, for you.

Waking up on the first day of the lunar new year with a hankerin' for Chinese isn't ideal.  While we managed to avoid that craving the night before, when no doubt every good Chinese restaurant was packed with people celebrating, we woke up with dim sum on the brain, and Ridgewood's Dim Sum Dynasty seemed like a good a spot as any to get a quick dim sum lunch.  In fact, their dim sum is quite good, especially when you consider that it's in the middle of Ridgewood.  We thought we might be able to sneak an early lunch in, and, you know, beat the crowds.

We were wrong. Apparently lots of other people know about their dim sum, as there was a 20 minute wait for a table...at 11.30 am. 

We soldiered on and waited for our table, avoiding rolling steam carts and crawling small children, and were treated to some pretty damned good food.  This is just a quick note to remind you and me to get down there for dim sum more often, but preferably not on Chinese New Year.

Crab claws

Beef tripe

A bun with stuff in it

Rib knuckles

Chive (and shrimp?)

Duck (this was great)

Lobster with ginger and scallion

 Dim Sum Dynasty : 75 Frankling Ave : Ridgewood, NJ : BYOB

And there's some ham.

I'll be here all week.

Margherita

Clam and smoked pancetta

Soppressata and chile

Guanciale and egg.  Always a crowd pleaser.