Go ahead and ask a few of your more food savvy friends where to get the best dim sum in NYC, and you’re likely to get a whole slew of different answers. You’ll probably hear some combination of Golden Unicorn, Jing Fong, Dim Sum Go Go, and maybe even East Manor in Flushing, assuming you’ve got some real showoffs in your midst. Nom Wah Tea Parlor will surely come up, too, as it should.

For the novice dim sum consumer (“that means dumplings, right?“), it can be really difficult to discern where to find the best Chinese meal of tiny portions in this town. We’re certainly not experts, and after doing tons of research and surveying Twitter, we essentially ended up just flipping a coin. Luckily, the coin landed on Nom Wah Tea Parlor last weekend, and we had a very successful meal. But there are definitely a few key parameters by which you should make your dim sum dining decisions. Let us explain why Nom Wah worked for us.

First of all, we were high on Nom Wah because we didn’t feel like having to fight an angry lady with a pushcart to get some food. Dim sum traditionalists will tell you that this is all part of the experience, but as far as we’re concerned, we’ll take the food without the conflict. Everything at Nom Wah is made to order and delivered directly to your table (plus, the service is friendly). Second, the simple fact that this place has been operating since 1920 tells us that they’re doing something right. The restaurant feels like a relic from a different era, and the food seems to have changed little as the decades have passed.

Check the Food Rundown for details, but Nom Wah is very simply an excellent place to eat some good dim sum and have a little fun. Is it the best in the city? We’ll leave that to the experts to decide. Hint: None of your friends are experts.