Remm & Birnbaum.

The New York Post ran an arbitrary list of the twelve most single men in NYC – ” the Flirty Dozen” – and coming in at #1 and #2 are Eugene Remm and Mark Birnbaum the owners of the Chandelier Room at the W Hoboken.

If you’re tired of knitting circles limited to coffee shops, tickets are on sale now for a special night of hot chocolate and knitting at City Bakery. Hop on the PATH to their Night of Hot Chocolate and Knitting on Thursday, February 18th. For $30 you’ll learn to knit marshmallow men and hats and cocoa mug cozies and coasters while sampling six flavors – Time Out has a preview – and enjoying an all you can eat dinner.

“Zita Keeley, a wine consultant, imparted those bits of wisdom and others during her mid-January winter wine dinner at the Melting Pot restaurant in Hoboken. There a diverse crowd of 23 paid $55 each plus tax and tip for a four-course meal accompanied by four wines.“

The pickle wielding critic.

Did anyone else know 95.5 WPLJ’s morning show featured a weekly restaurant review segment? We just happened to catch Coop’s Sandwich Shop en route to a cooking competition this morning and heard his high praise for the White Manna in Hackensack, giving it the coveted “Four Pickles.” The Jersey City location on Tonnelle Avenue, which just celebrated its 70th anniversary, also received a shout-out.

If you’ve ever been to either, you may have been surprised to hear his description, saying White Manna serves ten-napkin burgers steamed on a magical hibachi and which left his plate looking like a murder scene. Maybe there was a mushroom or two slipped among the onions.

This is the first time Coop’s visited anything remotely close to our area so if you’d like to recommend a Jersey City eatery for him to visit you can contact the show here.

The gourmet grocery in Liberty Towers may be the closest the neighborhood will come to having a full service supermarket anytime soon. The best most current (and reliable) estimate we’ve been given on the stalled construction at 77 Hudson is “six months to a year, if at all.” Things are more promising for 70 Hudson which will have a gastropub by the end of the summer from the “owner of several Jersey City bistros.” Can anyone narrow it down?

The interior, so far untouched.

Nearly a year ago Devi’s Suvir Saran expanded into Jersey City with American Masala, successfully tapping into nearly every culinary trend in the last ten months, serving up his family’s recipes for everything from fried chicken and schnitzel to lamb burgers and sliders. The only thing the restaurant couldn’t tap is the marketplace: The building and its contractor refused to allow Masala to open on weekends or add signage to its awnings, windows or doors. Even worse it was located six feet above street level at 95 Greene in the neighborhood’s financial district making bad foot traffic worse.

So maybe it shouldn’t have been such a surprise yesterday when we at last spotted signage on the front door; it was only the building’s address, but it now doubles as the restaurant’s new name. After months of bleeding money, we learn a contentious breach of contract gave cause for Sodexo to take out Suvir. And now the staff is dressed like cafeteria workers, daily specials decorated with herbs from the chef’s backyard are gone and what remains is renamed. (Kachumbar is now “Fruit & Vegetable Salad.”) Gone too is dinner service, happy hour and the cocktail menu. (Though the liquor license remains if you want a three martini lunch on the cheap.) The only thing that hasn’t changed? Former Devi sous chef Josh Thomas, (who cooked a Masala dinner at Beard House back in October,) is staying behind with plans to turn the restaurant around. The transitions are already underway and fortunately there was no need for closure.

We can only hope even if this experiment failed, Suvir and his team are still going forward with his plan to open an American Masala in Manhattan this spring. In the meantime, the new lunch menu below.

Click to enlarge.

Thursday is Hoboken Boys & Girls Club Steak and Burger Dinner and remember Saturday is the Cathedral Arts Champagne Gala at Grace Van Vorst. But this week’s Chlltown Lunch update on Time Out New York’s The Feed focuses on the season’s biggest tastings, tonight’s Taste of Hoboken at Canavan Arena and next week’s Sparrow Wine Grand Tasting at the Newport Westin.

Read Where to eat in New Jersey: Two giant tasting events.