Win Son Bakery [East Village]

Scallion pancake BEC, mochi donuts and Taiwanese-American pastry

The order that defines this Manhattan counter is the scallion pancake bacon egg and cheese. A laminated scallion pancake, shot through with fresh scallions and baked golden and crisp, stands in for the usual roll, then takes crispy bacon, scrambled egg and American cheese. It turns a Taiwanese breakfast staple into a New York bacon, egg and cheese without letting the pancake become a novelty.

Mochi donuts are the other anchor. Built on rice flour, they land chewy and pillowy, crisp outside and soft within, and the flavours run adventurous: mango-coriander has been one of them. Milk bun sandwiches carry the Taiwanese milk bread thread into savoury and sweet fillings. The case as a whole is rooted in Taiwanese-American baking rather than a French-only repertoire, working through scallion pancakes, mochi flour, milk buns, eggs, bacon and cheese.

Bakery by morning, bar by night

Win Son Bakery opened its East Village room after the original in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, putting Trigg Brown and Josh Ku’s Taiwanese-American bakery on both sides of the East River in New York City. It is not a spin-off but the same idea moved across: bakery, coffee shop, diner and bar in one room, built on Taiwanese breakfast habits and all-day eating.

Guests order at the counter and food comes to the table, mirroring the Brooklyn rhythm. Mornings centre on the scallion pancake BEC. Later the room shifts toward milk bun sandwiches, mochi donuts and full plates, with a bar programme of spirits, wine, beer, cocktails, draft wine and beer-and-shot specials turning the pastry counter into an evening hangout. The room runs loud and busy rather than quiet, and the lines that formed when it opened have not entirely gone away.

Order the scallion pancake BEC first

Start with the scallion pancake bacon egg and cheese: it is the fastest way to read the kitchen. The pancake brings the laminated, scallion-studded Taiwanese side; bacon, egg and cheese bring the American side. It is also the item the bakery’s following formed around, in Brooklyn first and then here.

After that, choose by texture. A mochi donut shows the chewy rice-flour register. A milk bun sandwich shows the soft, faintly sweet milk bread in a more meal-like form. Beyond breakfast the format lets an order move from pastry and coffee toward savoury food and bar drinks, and that full-day range is the point.