📍Win Son Bakery, New York City

Brooklyn Crawl: Stop 2

NYC's Bushwick, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint sections are hyper-concentrated with great coffee shops, food, and bars. So when a friend visited from Los Angeles, I got the opportunity to revisit some favorites.

Stop 1: Sey Coffee
Stop 2: Win Son Bakery
Stop 3: Pizza
Stop 4: Brewery
Stop 5: Pizza
Stop 6: CocktailsEvery time

After we left Sey Coffee, we walked about 15 minutes to Win Son Bakery. My friend had this on his list before visiting New York. This was probably the deciding factor that made us do this crawl in this area instead of any other.

Every time I’ve been here, there’s been a line. This time the line was outside the door. It didn’t take long to order from the counter, maybe about 15 minutes. They give you a little placard for the table to drop off your food. We just had to find a table, which was the real challenge. From the counter in the back, past the bar inside, and all the tables, every seat was full. Every table that looked ready to leave had groups hovering like vultures ready to take over.

We went outside. They have seating on a porch in front and around the side. We waited, also like vultures, for a group that looked ready to leave. Luckily it was nice outside, especially for December. We sat down and waited for our food. We saw servers from Win Son come outside and shout numbers. Sometimes they would get flagged down and other times they went to do another sweep inside. We caught up with our very suburban-looking view.

I ordered a beer. It was 10:30 a.m. and I had coffee at Sey. My friend ordered a soy milk tea. We split a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Scallion Pancake, a Pastrami Beef Tongue, Egg, and Cheese Scallion Pancake, and a Laminated Bolo Bao. Each Scallion Pancake sandwich comes with a spicy mayo-type condiment.

The Scallion Pancake is crispy on the outside with good chew on the inside. The exterior is so crispy the top layer sort of frays off as you bite into it leaving just the chew. It does a really good job of holding together so none of the filling is falling out. I think it’s how they press this that does that. I dunked into the spicy sauce and had it plain, they both worked. Without the sauce, you get more of the freshness that comes with scallions.

Both the pastrami beef tongue and bacon are on the thinner side. The bacon is well-rendered but not too crispy. It retains some chew. The bacon also has some sweetness coming from the caramelization. The pastrami beef tongue has that springy texture and the expected spices. I can’t explain how much it matters to me that a well-constructed sandwich keeps its ingredients in the sandwich while eating. Here, both proteins held together well and didn’t come sliding out in a bite.

It’s a thin layer of egg. It reminds me of how a Jianbing wrap gets brushed with an egg. The protein and cheese are the main components here. Wrapping up the proteins in the scallions pancakes is raclette cheese. Raclette is a very melty cheese and when it’s hot, you get the oozing texture. When it cools down, it retains softness and a viscous stickiness.

We split the Laminated Bolo Bao. It’s sort of like a large profiterole or cream puff if you’ve never had one. This one doesn’t have a filling so it’s light and airy. The top had a sugary crunch to it like a concha bun might. Next up on this crawl is pizza.

📍Win Son Bakery
164 Graham Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11206