Cocoron
“I always get the Stamina Soba with extra soba and I never feel guilty after gobbling it down because its BUCKWHEAT noodles.”
“Cocoron also has a dessert menu, with homemade mochi, and specials like the – mixed berries with tapioca and coconut milk.”
“I've liked the dip sobas here, but my favorite selection – as plain as it is – by far is buta shabu soba with sesame sauce.”
Cocoron
Bike Parking: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Is the ramen craze in full tilt, or is it waning? It seems like everyone wants to serve you a bowl of hot noodles these days, and an awful lot of it is all the same. Kudos then to Cocoron for doing something interesting, different, and delicious.
To be clear, Cocoron DOES NOT make ramen (or take cash). They make hot and cold bowls of soba. The hot soba is served EXTREMELY HOT, so unless you are a true Stormborn Targaryen I would both wait a goodly while after service and blow on each bite rather a lot, lest you sacrifice the rest of your delicious meal to obliterated tastebuds.
I have been here three times, and had the hot stamina soba twice. Highly recommend– infinite umami, extremely satisfying and fortifying. The cold "Zaru" soba is also a work of art, light and refreshing and hitting all the notes you would want both from a cold soup and, in some strange way, a salad.
If you want something truly good and weird, try the grilled Daikon mochi. It is, at once, both a homogeneous food log and, somehow, an intensely satisfying and mysterious flavor journey. I would gladly stop by just for one of these.
Cocoron gets very busy during dinner service and the place is small, so make sure you have concrete plans for what you do while you wait. Luckily, there's plenty to do in the neighborhood.
Didn't realize they had 2 separate restaurants right next to one another and accidentally went into the other one that specializes in curry. After that confusion, we finally got on the wait list for cocoron!
The wait took a while since it was peak time for dinner, but eventually we were seated. The restaurant itself isn't that large so it was pretty narrow and crowded.
We ordered the homemade silken tofu which was delicious! It was so fresh and soft, and literally melted in my mouth. However, I wasn't a huge fan of the soba I ordered…it was warm and had mushrooms in it. Perhaps I should have ordered a different soba dish…
Overall, good place to try. I felt really healthy coming out of there.
I have been meaning to give this place a try after reading all the spectacular reviews on yelp. The restaurant is rather small and there's usually a little bit of a wait, so make sure to get here early or when you're not starving because the wait can be long.
The staff were super friendly and nice. Our waters were always full and our sobas brought to us relatively quickly.
The dipping soba is highly recommend, I personally am not a huge fan of soba but I thought this was one of the better places I have been. If you like tons of protein like me then this is not the place for you. It was nice to try and I had a great time but this will not be on my short list of favorites as I prefer steak over noodles and rice.
I came on a very hot summer nyc day and ordered the dipping soba noodles in the hot soup BC IT'S WORTH IT.
But in all seriousness, I ordered the Stamina soba noodles (interesting titles for dishes btw). I like the whole dipping noodles concept and the soup was very flavorful. I was full after the meal but it was still light and not heavy-feeling.
It's a super small shop so if you come during peak times be prepared to wait. However, I went on a Friday at 6:30pm and we were able to snag the last table (granted there's only 3/4 tables and the rest is bar space). Went with a party of 4 and they made us split into two tables of 2…. not sure how this place is supposed to accomodate for parties greater than 2 but my party didn't mind the odd seating arrangement.
There's supposed to be another location that's larger and with more seating a block down but since we were already here we decided to stay.
overall, if you're a fan of soba noodles or want to try the concept of dipping your noodles, give this place a try!
Very hole in the wall place, especially with the scaffolding out front (july 2016).
Place is tiny. It has bar seating about 9 and about 4-5 doubles. The menu is well thought out and detailed enough. It also includes instructions on how one should eat dipping soba. It was a very hot summer night so i was hoping to escape the heat with AC… unfortunately, they didn't have one. That made me skip a hot soba and go for cold soba to cool down.
Like most reviewers suggested, i started with the silky tofu. it reminded me of my very first meal when i was in tokyo in 2007. However, Cocoron raises the bar by adding a small cup of nori, bonito shavings, green onions and ginger dish. Eating them all together, you really get a lot of complex flavors since the tofu is so subtle. I loved the freshness of all the ingredients and the bonito tasted higher quality. Like another reviewer mentioned, i would probably come back just to have this as a snack because it was delicious.
I forget whta soba i had..it was the cold version, came with eel and avocado. The broth was slightly salty but that was my bad for pouring all the broth into the bowl all at once. I loved the flavors. The eel was meaty and moist, the avocado fresh. I ordered the small/regular and it was a good size—especially for those not used to eating a carb heavy meal or soba in general.
Overall, i liked this place a lot, particularly the tofu. I think the tofu is worth it, but the soba was a slightly pricey–at $15 for a small. Service was good and friendly kitchen (open kitchen floor plan). There is another location on kenmare as well.
Love having their soba on any occasion. During the hotter weathers, the best to get to were the cold sobas. Every soba dish is packed immensely with flavor in every bite. Depending on which soba dish you order, each soba dish is layered with flavorful ingredients. The seating area is a bit tight. It's small with around 3-4 tables and a full bar. The staffs are friendly and attentive. They had a fan blowing rather than an ac. As my dish was coming, some of the nori from bowl blew off.
1. Warm buta hakusai soba – it's actually pretty hot in temperature. Definitely great for the winter and it savory. The ratio of broth, soba and vegetables in this soba was excellent. It's a light savory soba dish. It definitely fills you up but it's not greasy/oily. It's a very clean dish. I had this during the Winter and it warmed me up immediately after a few bites.
2. Warm & Cold sansei soba – mixture full of yummy ingredients. It's light, refreshing and cold of course
3. Cold kimchi soba – my all time favorite cold soba. It's got many layers of flavor. This dish got texture and flavor. There are crisp slices of apples which gives it the crunch, the sourness from the kimchi that have your mouth salivating for more, and the best of all is a light poached egg on the side. You mix all the ingredients together and you get a harmonious dish of happiness.
This place is soo good. I've never been a fan of soba noodles but this place changed my mind. I realized that I just never had good soba to know better.
First off, this place is cash only. The place is small so avoid peak hours if you can help it. The portions also aren't huge so don't come starving.
Now for the food – I really liked their tofu soba dip. It was subtle, yet delicious. We also had the kimchi and pork one, which was good but not as unique. We had a group of 5 so we all ordered a different one and shared.
Would definitely recommend this place. Please open one in California!
Randomly stumbled upon Cocoron when we were looking for an alternative for lunch after our first choice had an hour wait time; and I'm glad we came here instead! I've never tried dipping soba before and I was pleasantly surprised at the wide range of options they offered.
I decided to try their special menu at that time, which was the tomyum soba. I'm a huge fan of Thai food, so I was excited to see how this Jap-Thai fusion would turn out. Being a Japanese restaurant, I was slightly skeptical about how the tomyum would taste like, but they sure didn't disappoint. I've had authentic tomyum from Thailand and this definitely came close to it. It was the best meal I had in a while and I was a very happy girl at the end of the meal (: If you like spicy food and that lemongrass taste, definitely try the tomyum soba and thank me later.
They also serve complimentary green tea at the end which was a nice touch at the end of the meal. A+ for service!