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Mark interviews restaurant critic Steve Cuozzo. · The Mark Simone Show

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  Speaker 1: If you're listening to Mark on the iHeartRadio app, save
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Now back to the Mark Simone Show on woor.
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  Speaker 2: Well. Steve Cuzo is the great New York Post columnist
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  Speaker 2: nobody better on real estate, restaurants, on New York, on
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  Speaker 2: What's going On, and all of his columns are up
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  Speaker 2: on the New York Post website. Steve Cuzo, how you doing.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, good morning, I'm great. Thanks, welcome back your way.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, first thing, I want to talk about the
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  Speaker 2: biggest phenomenon in food. The biggest Instagram hottest thing is
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  Speaker 2: dot cake, which is basically cake and a little cup
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  Speaker 2: covered with sprinkles, but they're actually dots and somehow they
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  Speaker 2: are like embedded in there so that don't come out.
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  Speaker 2: People wait in line. Look at Butterfield's Market for three hours.
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  Speaker 2: You actually did it? How what does it taste like?
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  Speaker 1: Tastes like well, as the kids would say, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: a kid anymore, it tastes like ass. All right, that's
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  Speaker 1: not a compliment. That's not a compliment in any way
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  Speaker 1: says something tastes like ass. But anyway, so yeah, at
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  Speaker 1: butterfield Market. Really good story. I shop in them all
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  Speaker 1: the time, two of them on the upper east side.
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  Speaker 1: They're the only ones right now have this, these dot
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  Speaker 1: cakes that are made in a bakery and Roslyn, Long Islands,
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  Speaker 1: and it became a viral thing, you know, some bunch
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  Speaker 1: of influencers who claim to have millions of followers. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: they do, maybe they don't. Said one of them said
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  Speaker 1: that it was the best thing she's ever had in
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  Speaker 1: her entire life, which if true, I pity her. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know what she's been eating. So, as I wrote,
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  Speaker 1: the sludgy confections are unspeakably awful. You know, the top
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  Speaker 1: with the little tiny, non priial sprinkles, it looks cute,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they're rainbow colors. And it's what's beneath that
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  Speaker 1: that is dreadful. So there's the icing made from palm
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  Speaker 1: oil and anything hardly anything natural, and then below that
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  Speaker 1: is the cake itself. The cake itself tastes exactly like
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  Speaker 1: so for example, the white ones which I tried, which
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  Speaker 1: they don't call vanilla because it has no vanilla. If
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  Speaker 1: you look at the list of ingredients, you say, wait
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  Speaker 1: a minute, what's what planet are we on here? What laboratory?
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  Speaker 1: What science fiction nightmare?
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  Speaker 2: Did these come from?
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  Speaker 1: And I'll give you a few examples. I'm not going
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  Speaker 1: to get this right because they're impossible to pronounce, but
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  Speaker 1: something sodiums silly colluminate, mono calcium phosphate, sort the tan monosteroid.
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  Speaker 1: And here's my favorite terror tetra sodium prothose fate.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, my favorite, my favorite food.
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  Speaker 1: That word, that word is so long that we had
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  Speaker 1: a problem fitting in our computer sys almost any wine.
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  Speaker 1: So and that's not all. There's more stuff. So the
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  Speaker 1: result is that, you know, and of course there's some
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  Speaker 1: basic flowering age or uh, the egg white. If you
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  Speaker 1: go into any like convenience store of bodega, your corner
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  Speaker 1: candy store, and you look at the you know, they're
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  Speaker 1: the stand in the front with the cheap sweet treats,
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  Speaker 1: you know, funny bones and posts, cupcakes and uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: band of fingers, all these different things, and they're in
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  Speaker 1: these cellophane wrappers.
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  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: This is what the dot cakes taste like and what
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  Speaker 1: they feel like on the tongue. They're spongy, they're they're
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  Speaker 1: not pleasant, they're dry. Uh, and that's because they're made
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  Speaker 1: out of mainly chemical ingredients, stabilizers whatnot. And to bind
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  Speaker 1: the thing together, and they are. It's absolutely awful. And yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you've got people standing online. I waited online an hour
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  Speaker 1: basically at the Madison and Avenue and eighty fifth streets
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  Speaker 1: and to get they'll only sell you two at a time,
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  Speaker 1: which makes sense. They get I think, six hundred on
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  Speaker 1: Wednesday and six hundred more on Saturday, and obviously, excuse me,
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  Speaker 1: so they'll sell. They don't want people hoarding them the line,
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  Speaker 1: want to them, and so it takes an hour from
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  Speaker 1: this line too, you know for you to get to
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  Speaker 1: the front. Uh and uh. You know, the people I
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  Speaker 1: spoke to, a lot of the people I spoke to
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  Speaker 1: online hadn't tried them yet. But they were excited because
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  Speaker 1: they saw these viral TikTok posting Instagram, especially TikTok, which
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  Speaker 1: is scary to think about it, but TikTok, which is
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  Speaker 1: still owned by a Chinese algorithm, is a main engine
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  Speaker 1: of our carrent, believe it or not. So they hadn't
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  Speaker 1: tasted them. They were a little skeptical. But you know,
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  Speaker 1: nobody wants you know, what is the foamo ear missing out?
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  Speaker 1: They don't want to. They're only ones among their friends
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  Speaker 1: who hadn't tried it, so they waited an hour, and
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  Speaker 1: then when they got them, I talked to several people
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  Speaker 1: and they had basically the same reaction that I did, like, well,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they're okay.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, nobody.
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  Speaker 1: Wanted to say I got suckered.
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  Speaker 2: There are a hundred dollars each.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, these little eight ounce cups are eleven
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  Speaker 1: dollars each. You go into the bodega or the grocery
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  Speaker 1: store and you get one of these chocolate colored tweets
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  Speaker 1: like snowballs or bunny bones whatever, they're three dollars.
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  Speaker 2: Hey. So if I went over there to Morton Williams
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  Speaker 2: and bought, you know, just a vanilla cake, and I
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  Speaker 2: bought a bag of sprinkles and packed it down on top,
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't I have the same thing.
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  Speaker 1: It would be much better if you got real you know,
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  Speaker 1: vanilla keg or vanilla ice cream, excuse me, and you
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  Speaker 1: put a sprinkled non prial sprinkles on top. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: it would be better. And in fact, you know, it's
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  Speaker 1: interesting because Butterfield Market, in their regular bakery section, they
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  Speaker 1: sell a product. I don't know what it's called, but
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  Speaker 1: I almost bought one by mistake, thinking that this was
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  Speaker 1: the Dot pas a cake that looks a lot like
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  Speaker 1: a dotcake, except that dot cakes around and these are rectangular,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm sure that they would have been ten times
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  Speaker 1: better had I bought one.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Butterfield is one of the finest sup markets. It
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  Speaker 2: is probably the finest super market New York, run by
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  Speaker 2: a really nice family, Joel and her family. Anything in
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  Speaker 2: their bakery is going to be better than that dot cake.
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  Speaker 1: So exactly. And they have an exclusive arrangement with this
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  Speaker 1: bakery and Maslin, which is called Dot Cakes with the
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  Speaker 1: Dot Cakes to sell these things in Manhattan. And I
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  Speaker 1: don't know how or why it came about that they
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  Speaker 1: got that kind of that kind of exclusive way. And
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  Speaker 1: I walked by the one yesterday on Madison Navy. They
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  Speaker 1: don't have the Dotcakes on Sunday, but there's an excuse me.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very popular store. There was a long line
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  Speaker 1: on the sidewalk for their frozen yogurt and things like that,
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  Speaker 1: which they sell to a window. A great store, awful product,
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  Speaker 1: And I don't know what anybody's thinking anymore.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Hey, you also wrote a comms. We're talking to
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  Speaker 2: Steve Cuzo The Great New York Post Commas Madison Avenue
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  Speaker 2: fifty fifth. It used to be the Sony Building and
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  Speaker 2: the Sony store was the whole first floor. I love that.
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  Speaker 2: Now it's like a very expensive bars restaurant. And did
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  Speaker 2: you say McLaren is opening a dealership in there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. In fact, since I wrote that last week, I
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  Speaker 1: was told just this morning that they had actually signed
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  Speaker 1: the lease.
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  Speaker 2: But it's probably true.
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  Speaker 1: An excuse me. So the Formers Tony Building five point
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  Speaker 1: fifteen Madison, which was redesigned by the owner's company called
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  Speaker 1: on America. So it's one filled with offices great companies
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  Speaker 1: like Chubb and Hedge Funds and all that at very
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  Speaker 1: high rents. And at the north end there is the
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  Speaker 1: restaurant complex, Simon Kim's hospitality company. It's a complex of
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  Speaker 1: the Korean barbecue restaurants and three bars, and there's a
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  Speaker 1: third element coming in the fall, a Japanese sushi bar
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  Speaker 1: run by a three micheline star chef. The south end
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  Speaker 1: has been vacant and Simon Kim signed the leads for
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  Speaker 1: the restaurants space like four years ago, but it took
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  Speaker 1: the build out took forever. All kinds of issues Landmarks,
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  Speaker 1: Buildings Department.
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  Speaker 2: ET cetera.
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  Speaker 1: But the similar sized space at the south end of
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  Speaker 1: the building behind those tall windows has been empty ever
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  Speaker 1: since the temporary art exhibition now for the Museum of
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  Speaker 1: the City of New York, I believe. But they've signed
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  Speaker 1: the lease, or they're very close to signing the lease
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  Speaker 1: with McLaren Automotive, which is the that's the street clar
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  Speaker 1: division of McLaren, the legendary race car company British, which
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  Speaker 1: was named for founder Bruce McLaren, who tragically perished in
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  Speaker 1: a driving accident way back when at age twenty eight.
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  Speaker 1: And anyway, this will be a terrific addition to the
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  Speaker 1: Madison Avenue will.
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  Speaker 2: But only twelve guys driving. McClaren's the guy on Billions
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  Speaker 2: who drives them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you can go yet, of course you're right,
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  Speaker 1: But you can go in and look at them. The
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  Speaker 1: luxury image, you know, fits perfectly with Madison Avenue in
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  Speaker 1: the forties and East forties, fifties and sixties, the city's premiere,
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  Speaker 1: you know, high end shopping district. Notwithstanding soho and and
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  Speaker 1: you know, Ferrari, there's a traind Ferrari is moving into
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  Speaker 1: a much larger space on Park Avenue at the five
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  Speaker 1: twenty Park Avenue. It's been for years in a much
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  Speaker 1: smaller space with a low ceiling across the avenue, and
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  Speaker 1: now they're moving into a very large space. That will
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  Speaker 1: it's going to be a hit. People. You're not going
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  Speaker 1: to buy the Ferrari. You're just going to go in
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  Speaker 1: and look at them.
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  Speaker 2: So can we take it? Can we take it?
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  Speaker 1: From all?
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  Speaker 2: This in New York is not dying.
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  Speaker 1: Not quite, not quite yet anything but mark anything.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, well you got them Claren dealer, a Ferrari
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  Speaker 2: dealer down the block. You got expensive restaurants.
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  Speaker 1: Aiston Martin, Aiston Martin too, really just around the corner. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Awson Martin has a huge show room on I think
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  Speaker 1: it's Park and fifty seven.
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  Speaker 2: Well, these are pretty smart people. They wouldn't be opening
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  Speaker 2: these things here if they didn't think New York had
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  Speaker 2: a big future and that things were going well here.
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  Speaker 2: Despite that, we got it, despite our politicians. Well great stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody read Steve Cuzo's columns in The New York Post.
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  Speaker 2: If you go to the website, all of his columns
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  Speaker 2: are up there. Just go to the opinion section, look
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  Speaker 2: up Steve Cuzo. You'll find his columns there great stuff.
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  Speaker 2: And Steve Cuze thanks for being with.
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  Speaker 1: Us, Thank you, thanks again.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you. Take care, Hey, don't forget coming up at
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  Speaker 2: noon Buck and Clay. And you know that Curtis Sliwa
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  Speaker 2: is on every morning here. It's Curtisliwa Larry Mente every
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  Speaker 2: morning six to ten on seven ten Woor