Cocoron — Restaurant in New York

This is the new location of a very much loved (seemingly always graffiti covered) noodle joint.

Come hungry and ready for something fun and possibly controversial.

We started with the sticky yam, which is a mashed yam paste sandwiched between two pieces of Dyson radish with rolled up nori. There were no introductions so we grabbed the “sandwich” with the nori and went to town. I can see why this was considered controversial. There is no way to eat this without a line of either drool or “stickiness” connecting your lips to the yam. The flavor is as expected, Yammy and bright. Worth a try.

We then had vegetable gyoza which are great and come classically bound together the Tokyo way with a crust from the pan. These gyoza are soft and flavor packed and not as salty as their pork filled cousins. There are MANY vegan options here and this was only one, but I suspect a vegan would be happy here. (I only know one, so I can’t say for sure).

Onto our main dishes. These can be hard to choose from, mostly because the menu is something from a Dora the Explorer episode. Categories of food style with accessories and heat indexes are your guide to choose from. I’m pretty sure the staff intentionally give you extra time to review. I needed it.

Cold noodle salad with pork and a dipping sauce it what it was called and you don’t need much more info. The dipping sauce is like you get with soba, and the salad was all sorts of lettuce and cucumbers. The pork is very thinly sliced bits which ensures you get a bit of pork with every noodle you dip. This salad was at the bottom of the menu under the appetizers so I had to ask if it was a main, clearly it’s a main, I almost couldn’t finish it.

My wife had one of their signature dishes (can’t remember the name sorry) which was rice and onions and pork with a fried egg on top.

Everything was great. The place is cash only so come prepared or pay to use the ATM...

Coming from Boston, I've always been kind of wary of soba. It just doesn't get warm enough for long enough in the summer for me to consistently crave cold noodles in the same way that I crave a piping, hearty hot bowl of udon or ramen.

And then I tried cocoron. It was a breezy day, low 50s / high 40s, but my brother and sister-in-law insisted that cocoron had great cold and hot soba options. We arrived around noon on Sunday and it was pretty empty so we got seated immediately. We ordered the dashimaki tamago starter, the mera mera dipping soba, and the Yokozuna dipping soba. Everything arrived within minutes and we tucked in.

The tamago was beautiful - soft, equal parts salty and sweet, and really lovely against the slightly sharp grated radish. The mera mera was a spicy sesame-based dipping soba broth with bits of chicken and boy choy inside - so rich and lovely, a tad on the salty side, but really hearty and delicious - sort of the opposite of what I had expected from the "summer" reputation soba has. The Yokozuna was also really incredible - with great pork and seaweed flavors fortified by corn and ground pork, it was rich, meaty, but also not unbearably heavy.

The soba, though. The soba. So springy and light in the mouth, they somehow made it so that it didn't get soggy even after digging up a few straggling strands that had been stewing in the dipping broth for ages. I definitely wish I had gotten the large ($17) instead of the small ($16).

Cocoron isn't super cheap for sure -- $55 after tax and tip for two entrees and one starter - but it's really tasty and really comforting, the perfect food for the onset of winter or dregs of cold weather before the...

My friend and I arrived here at 6 on a Thursday, and we were able to sit at one of the three available tables instead of the counter. Even when we left there wasn't a line, but that could have been due to the fact that it was Cinco de Mayo. It definitely is a small restaurant, so I can see how it could easily get crowded on busy days. The tables themselves are small, too; we could barely fit our food and the bottle of sparkling sake (tastes like soda!) on the tabletop. This place is cash only, but there's an ATM a few doors down if you need to use it.

The menu is full of cute graphics to help you navigate and decide on what to order. We started with the daikon mochi, which was a strange texture- mushier and stringier than regular mochi. I wouldn't get it again. I opted for the warm Japanese curry dipping soba, and my friend got the hot duck soba. Both were delicious! I like how the coldness of the noodles for the dipping sauce that was heated with a flame allow the soba to maintain a firmer texture throughout the meal, but my friend's soba had a deeper flavor from soaking in the soup. Partway through the meal the server brought a teapot of hot water to put in the dipping sauce to drink as broth. For dessert we got the mochi ice cream (nothing special) and the green tea affogato that came with matcha tea to be poured on top. Who knew corn flakes would go so well with grean tea ice cream and red bean paste?

If you're looking for some solid soba in a no-frills environment, hit...