Right before the final Harry Potter book was released, a few friends and I dorkily started a Harry Potter book club. We had a facebook group page and code names for each other. I was Hagrid. We were so cool. On the day the Deathly Hallows was released, we gathered in one living room to read and eat cupcakes that had Hogwarts logos on them. Cool, I tell you we were. That night, we took our books to Pi and ended up meeting this British guy, whom we used to amuse ourselves by making him say magic phrases with his British accent. Expelliarmus! Wengardium Leviosa! And the most dreaded.. Avada Kedavra... the second half of which, incidentally, sounds like cadeaver, which I guess is apt, given it's a killing spell. British guy was amused for about five seconds before he wished he could use the Avada Kedavra on himself.

Anyway, one dorky element that we missed out on, clearly, was the Magic Wand remote. This button-free remote syncs with your TV remote and "learns" to perform certain functions depending on how you swing the wand. There are 13 different ways to operate your control, even though I can't think of 13 ways to use a wand. But that's why I'm not a magician. Hagrid was kicked out of Hogwarts, remember? Anyway, cute idea. Dorky, yes, but still cute. JUST LIKE ME.

You can get it here. On a side note, I almost accidentally posted this is Geek Spy: Magic Wang Remote. Which totally sounds like a battery-operated pleasure device. Which is also maybe much cooler than a TV wand. But we're not going to go there.

Understated street chic. Divine. From Jimmy Choo

Uh, kind of a no brainer. Dragonfly spa is offering 50% off Heavenly Touch, a 90-minute foot spa (soak, scrub, mask and 60-minute massage) bringing the bill in at a measly $260. Monday to Thurdays only is the catch. You have two days to sign up via ValuUp here, then two months to book. To learn more about ValuUp, check out our intro here.

Dragonfly Spa is newly opened at the Novotel Century, and is one of China's top spas, having won numerous awards including 'Best Foot Massage in Shanghai' etc.

I love me a good eat. And nothing pleases me more than scanning my inbox to put together the monthly food column at work. The PRs do good work by putting together informative releases, but it's the pictures that usually slay me. Food photography is the worst thing to happen to my diet since... well, food. And when these things hit the inbox before lunch, it's torture. So I've done you a favour by keeping the food shots after the cut. Click on and don't blame me for what happens next.

Blame my fellow CISer Christian Yang and his wife Judith, the adorable couple pictured above, who have just opened their second restaurant, Zenku, in Nexxus Building in Central. Their first was Bang Bang Pan Pan which is a really cute DIY okinomiyaki joint in Causeway Bay. Innovative Japanese concept restaurants seem to be their thing, but instead of an easy, clean-cut idea like choose-your-own-ingredient pancakes, they've gone high end with modern Japanese ideas like a tonkatsu mille feuille and boeuf bourguignon gyoza (dying here). I do plan to check this place out in person, so I'll update more if/when that happens. Menu highlights from the press release also after the cut.

From the sushi bar, creative sushi options - Zenku Zushi – include Margarita merguro sushi (lean cut tuna with a margarita foam), Sushi of Foie Gras and Peach oyster katsu roll as well as the full range of fresh flown in seafood to be served as traditional sushi and sashimi.

Signature appetisers are Cold soba noodles and ponzu with frozen foie gras, Boeuf bourguignon gyoza, and Prawn and Shiro Miso Cappuccino. Mains include Lazy surf and turf, pork tonkatsu mille feuille and Foie loaded quail.

For dessert, sweet treats include Oven roasted banana in soy caramel, soba crumble and miso ice cream and Sake gelee, strawberries pop rocks, lychee snow and Yakult sorbet.








Open Daily for…
Lunch: 11:30am to 3pm
Afternoon tea: 3pm to 6pm
Dinner: Sunday to Thursday, 6pm to 11pm / Friday & Saturday, 6pm to midnight

Contact Details:
Address: 2nd Floor, Nexxus Building, 77 Des Vouex Road, Central
Tel: 2899 2216
Email: manager@zenku-hk.com

I've always appreciated bullet jewellery yet it seems all you see are bullet pendants that while cool, can frankly be rather boring. I just stumbled upon the genius of Bullet Girl, a brand create by Houston-based designer Jessica Meyer. Take the traditional bullet plated in gold or rhodium and add a dash of femininity like diamonds, pearls and onyx and you get elegantly dangerous statement jewllery. Don't expect to see the traditional bullet shape in all the pieces, some only uses bullet caps so the bullet detail is rather subtle. Behold the pieces I covet.

Remember the clock that we showcased a while back that is for the alphabetically inclined? Well, here’s one for math nerds. (Sidenote, why is it that it sounds so much smoother in my head that mathematically inclined people should be nerds rather than geeks? Hmm, a conundrum to ponder over a rainy day methinks.) Anyway, makers of this clock want to ensure that those calculus lessons, math classes haven’t gone to waste. Of course, most of us past a certain age learned to read an analog clock by its angles, so numerals are kinda unnecessary but nice concept. How many do you know? Answers after the cut. Get it for US$25 here.

Answers
12 - a radical
1 - Legendre's constant is a mathematical constant occurring in a formula conjectured by Adrien-Marie Legendre to capture the asymptotic behavior of the prime-counting function. Its value is now known to be exactly 1.
2 - A joke in the math world: An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says, "You're all idiots," and pours two beers.
3 - A unicode character XML "numeric character reference."
4 - Modular arithmetic, also known as clock arithmetic, is a system of arithmetic for integers, where numbers "wrap around" after they reach a certain value. The modular multiplicative inverse of 2 (mod 7) is the integer /a/ such that 2*/a/ is congruent to 1 modulo 7.
5 - The Golden Mean...reworked a little.
6 - Three factorial (3*2*1=6)
7 - A repeating decimal that is proven to be exactly equal to 7 with Cauchy's Convergence Test.
8 - Graphical representation of binary code.
9 - An example of a base-4 number, which uses the digits 0, 1, 2 and 3 to represent any real number.
10 - A Binomial Coefficient, also known as the choose function. 5 choose 2 is equal to 5! divided by (2!*(5-2)!)
11 A hexadecimal, or base-16, number.

There ain't nothing sexier than a pair of lace pumps, and nothing else.
Get them here.