Every month, we have an “eating out” budget. We could afford to eat out many times at fast food places, or fewer times at more interesting placesÂ…often with better food. We’re usually lazy and take the easy fast food route. As an experiment, we’re trying a “no fast food chain” month. We nearly failed the mission only two days into the month, as we hadn’t gotten around to dinner until about 9 and we were starving. The problem with eating out late at a local restaurant is that they’re usually closed by 8. Then we noticed Ming Dynasty was open until 9:30. Yay! They have a sign that claims they’re the only place in New Mexico with homemade dim sum. (AmerAsia?) Dim sum are steamed buns and dumplings with various kinds of fillingÂ…chicken, pork, egg, veggies, seafood, etc. They don’t give you a dim sum menu unless you ask for it. The menu has a huge variety of dim sum with various fillings and flavors and you pick the ones you want (like sushi menus). Sometimes (during lunch?), restaurants just roll around a cart full of it and you pick the ones you want from there. I liked it, but the buns I got seemed a little plain. I asked the guy there if people usually dip it in something and he said they eat the buns straight, but they dip the dumpling style ones in soy sauce with chili. (You had me at soy sauce and chili.) So, my dim sum suggestion is that you make sure you don’t just get the bun style ones as I did, but also the transparent dumpling style ones and make sure you get some chili for your soy sauce. Their hot tea was very good too. Ya know, I think Gil’s Albuquerque restaurant list will be pretty helpful in this month’s OPERATION SLOW FREEDOM. (Sean was already complaining about not going to McDonald’s yesterday.)