This Chinese food really DOES taste better the second day...

...or the fourth day! I'm watching this crazy Shear Genius show - yet another knock off of my favorite among its kind, Project Runway, only focusing on the hair (cooking, hair, interior design - what next, a makeup show called Project Pancake?). And I really want to hate this show, because conventional wisdom says it is supposed to suck. But I begrudgingly admit that, while it's no Top Chef, it isn't that bad (Top Design, now that was a boring show).

This ep of Shear Genius is the episode where the stylists had to do period hairstyles with full costume! There's this 80's punk woman next to a model in Victorian costume and a flapper from the 1920's. It's like some bizarre Doctor Who episode where women from different eras in Earth's past (okay, Britain's past) were kidnapped and all placed in the same room. I'm halfway expecting the Cybermen to come out and start killing everyone. Love the costumes, though.

And I am watching this strange show (I think my fave look is the Elizabethan one) while eating Chinese food that has lasted in my fridge not for one or two days, but four whole days. Of course, this is no ordinary Chinese food. What I'm munching on is the A&M crispy beef (their "candy beef") I got at Cafe Zen on Saturday night with a friend. I have had some naaaaasty leftover Chinese food before, all of the "greasy wok" variety. But Cafe Zen, to be sure, is a cut above the typical hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant (Szechuan Hot Wok by BWI? New Asia in Arbutus? Any restaurant or carryout with Happy in the name?). Theirs is just a bit higher in quality. Perhaps that explains it.

The one problem I have with this candy beef is that I can't taste the beef. It's all just crunch and honey. That's it! I took home my friend's lemon almond chicken, too (he never finishes Chinese leftovers, so he just said "Take it"). That was better. I finished that on Monday night.

Yep, some good food at Cafe Zen. Just wonder if anyone will come out in an American Revolution-era get up.