Quick Bites: Vegan delights at BK Museum, pastries in Greenpoint, and Oh Boy expands

By Scott Lynch

Aunts et Uncles Summer House at Brooklyn Museum

Vegan lobster roll, $16; vegan rice bowl with grilled king oyster mushrooms, $18 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

It’s been a while since I’ve had anything like a regular summer house in my life, not since those Montauk shares we organized back in the mid-1990s (what a time that was!), but the excellent new Aunts et Uncles food truck, called Summer House and parked outside the entrance to the Brooklyn Museum, will definitely help ease that stuck-in-the-city sting a bit this season.

If you’re a fan of Nicole and Mike Nicholas’s superb Aunts et Uncles restaurant down on Nostrand, a fully plant-based Caribbean spot that the couple opened in the spring of 2021, you’re probably already planning a visit to the new food truck this weekend. It’ll be open on Fridays through Sundays through August 31 and, yes, among the half dozen or so dishes available here is the Aunts et Uncles vegan lobster roll, made with hearts of palm on a rosemary pretzel bun. This makes for a perfect summer lunch.

Exclusive to the Brooklyn Museum truck is the couple’s first-ever rice bowl and it’s delicious, packed with grilled king oyster mushrooms, black lentils, and some legitimately fiery jerk hummus. Their summer houseburger here is slightly different from what you may know from the restaurant proper (the pickles are a key addition), there’s a simple green salad with corn and citrus fruits, a hearts of palm ceviche in coconut milk and a lively, plant-based choripan sausage sandwich. Drinks include their restorative juices, like sorrel hibiscus, or ginger cucumber.

The Nostrand Aunts et Uncles has also become a community hub, and a “lifestyle shop,” with lots of the couple’s signature (and dope) merchandise on sale. Nicole told us that they’ll be featuring their A Walk Through Heritage pieces at the Museum outpost. And when the weather is nice, as it was last Sunday when I ate here, the shady tables set up in front of the truck make for an exceptionally pleasant afternoon hangout spot.

As the Nicholases suggest on their restaurant menu: “Take your time eating, remembering that you are human and not a machine for producing, grinding, rushing, posting, emailing, zooming, etc. Watch your breathing. Still your mind. Chew your food. You are alive and you are necessary — for now you are hungry, so eat and enjoy.”

Aunts et Uncles Summer House is located on the southwest corner of the Brooklyn Museum’s front plaza, and will be open on Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. through August 31.   

Paloma Coffee and Bakery in Greenpoint

Hazelnut mocha croissant, $7.50; spanikopita escargot, $8; croissant brownie and praline croissant, $6 each (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Chef Alexander Zecena said that, when he and his business partner Reuben Villagomez started their venture back in that first pandemic fall of 2020, they wanted Paloma to be known as much for its pastries as for its coffee program. Their first coffee shop, on Manhattan Avenue, is a tiny affair, and their second, in Williamsburg on Union, isn’t much larger. So although both locations have always had a selection of sweet and savory pastries to go along with the coffee, the baking team felt constrained by the capability of their kitchens.

Finally, Zecensa and Villagomez found a space worthy of their dreams, the former home to Jaslowiczanka Bakery, which closed in 2021 after more than 30 years on Nassau Avenue and came equipped with an enormous kitchen. Although the public ordering counter area of the new Paloma Bakery is relatively modest, and the only seating is at the counter up front, or at a couple of tables out on the sidewalk (or, of course, at nearby McGolrick Park), there are multiple, very large rooms in the back with enough space to crank out pastries for all three shops.

When I showed up last Sunday morning, Zecensa and his friendly crew had already put out nearly 20 different pastries, from expected laminations like a chocolate croissant and a pain aux raisin to more unusual options for a neighborhood bakery such as a latticed butternut squash and halloumi cheese affair and a photogenic (and, per the hungover dudes at the next table, very good) blood orange cream twist.

I had a pastry feast. On the sweet side, I wolfed a decadent hazelnut mocha croissant, coated with Nutella and filled with so much gooey, creamy stuff inside I needed to take several trips to the napkin dispenser before I was done. The croissant brownie was also a winner — it’s basically a whole brownie covered in laminated dough — as was Zecensa’s sugary praline concoction. On the savory side, the spiraling spanakopita escargot was almost hefty and hearty enough to function as an entire brunch just by itself.

“Reuban and I both live in the neighborhood, our kids go to school here, we feel like a part of this community,” says Zecensa. “We’re a big team here, a big family, and everyone contributes. It’s been good.  At the end of the day we just want to make people happy.”

The new Paloma Coffee and Bakery is located at 163 Nassau Avenue, between Newel and Diamond Streets, and is currently open daily from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Oh Boy Supply and Records near Domino Park

Coming soon: Oh Boy Supply and Records at South 3rd Street (Photo by Scott Lynch)

About a year ago Brendon Beck and Derek Orrell flipped their Williamsburg cafe Beck and Call to a new concept called Oh Boy, and it’s been nothing but day parties and good times ever since. A couple of early social media hits — the gloppy Oh Boy burger and, especially, the McGriddy, a breakfast sandwich that swaps out bread for pancakes — gave the place some instant juice, but the overall chill and sunny vibes of the place is what has made it a neighborhood staple.

Now the Oh Boy crew has expanded their Williamsburg operation in a big way, with the opening of the spacious and ambitious Oh Boy Supply and Records on South 3rd down by Domino Park. The new spot is basically part of the Freehold complex, and the Oh Boy team, led by chef and Llama Inn alum Merrill Winston will be in charge of all the food for both places. And the wine list will be curated by local favorite Sauce. But Beck, a California native who has lived in Williamsburg for 14 years now, says they have big, if still slightly vague, plans for Oh Boy Supply and Records.

“We’re definitely going to be having a little bit of vinyl listening,” Beck tells Brooklyn Magazine. “And we’re definitely going to carry over the daytime parties from Havemeyer. We’re going to have an amazing sound system, which I’m pretty stoked about, and the food will be super casual but delicious. Nothing crazy, but we’re going to play around with a lot of fun ideas and let them come out as they come out. There will be soft serve. Pastries and coffee. Sunday barbecues. Maybe a caviar something? I don’t know. We’re going to let the neighborhood kind of dictate to us. We just like giving good food to people that want to eat it.”

Oh Boy Supply and Records is located at 45 South 3rd Street, between Wythe and Kent Avenues, and will be open for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner.