Cocoron

Avoid making the faux pas of going to the Japanese restaurant next door, ask where the soba is, and then get directed to Cocoron. I think they’re owned by the same people, but still…
We came on a rainy Wednesday at 1:30 pm and it was about half full. I ordered the warm pork kimchee soba (when they say warm, they mean steaming burn-​your-​mouth hot).
The pork was probably the best part of the bowl, followed by the kimchee. The broth was a little too sour for me, and though hot noodles are always good on a cold day, the noodles themselves were a bit too sweet & sour-​ish as well. Plus, for $ 14 for the bowl, I wish there was something more dynamic about the bowl, or that it included another element or veggie or something else.
Take it with a grain of salt; I’m not a huge soba fan to begin with. It was okay.
Cash only!

Came here with my boyfriend on a friday night. Place is small with good amounts of tables & chairs. They have some chairs at the counter too.
Luckyly we didn’t wait at all. We got seated right away. Our table is very close to the door so its kinda cold whenever people open the door to come in & out. So we ordered the following:
Drinks:
Cold green tea= I thought it has a some sort of a taste. Maybe a little sweet or something but its like drinking a cold water. I would like a little sweetness in my drinks so I ask for a simple syrup or some sweetener but they don’t have it.
Appetizer:
spicy cucumber= its literally slices of cucumbers with some sauce. Its not that spicy. Or if you really love spicy you wouldn’t even taste the spiciness. (Its not impressive & it taste okay)
Main dish:
(For myself) regular japanese curry dip soba noodles with pork= its a cold noodle that you dip it into the bowl of hot thick soup. (It taste pretty good) you can taste the curry flavor & the noodle texture is perfect.
(For my bf) stamina soba– it taste good & he enjoys eating it. Its in a big bowl too. I tried it & I think next time I’m gonna get this.
Dessert:
Homemade vanilla mochi= it taste yummy! But its really small. Me & my bf shared it but 1 person can eat the whole thing.
Service:
Fast & servers are attentive.
All in all I love the food & Its really unique. They give teas after the meal. Wanna come back soon with friends to let them try it!

A really different Ramen experience.
A bit of wait.
Real enjoyed it.

My boyfriend and I have never tried soba noodles, so we thought this would be a good chance to try it since we were in the neighborhood. I’ve heard people rave about this place so I was excited to try it.
It was a friday afternoon around 1, and the wait wasn’t too long. We put our names on the waiting list and waited outside. The inside is pretty small, but I heard this is bigger than their delancey location.
I ordered the warm curry noodles and my boyfriend ordered the pork kimchi dip noodles. The food didn’t take too long to come. I wanted more of a spicy flavor with my curry broth, but the flavor was good. The broth was thick, but I should’ve ordered the dip noodles instead. That just made me want ramen more and I wasn’t able to finish it. The pork kimchi one was spicy and good. I highly recommend that. Although, there wasn’t much broth that came with it and it kinda boiled off throughout the meal.
This place wasn’t bad, but I think we’re both more ramen people rather than soba people.

Best place for soba noodles! Try to come before 7PM with two people, and you’ll get seated right away. Come with more than 3 people especially for prime dinner time, then be prepared to wait about 45 minutes… the line forms rapidly !
HOT DIPPING SOBA — perfect during the winter time! get the mera mera dip; which is the best in flavor wise among all of the dipping broths! … My last visit it was a little too saltier than usual however. The boyfriend recently tried the Kamo duck one which is another good option. My least favorite would definitely have to be the Japanese curry one. The hot dipping ones comes out on a small burner with a soup base broth that might have some vegetables and sort of protein in their for you to dip your soba noodles in for just a few seconds. At the end they will give you a tea kettle with extra hot water for you to dilute your hot dipping soup broth to drink it after!
COLD SOBA NOODLES — I LOVEE their cold soba noodles. Specifically the one they had as a special during the summer time, «yukisoba» which consisted of a poach egg, seaweed, scallions, sesame oil, sesame seeds, tempura flakes, beef and some sort of other sauce component used to mix everything all together to get such a delicious combination. How can cold noodles be sooo refreshing and amazing?!
APPETIZERS — I’ve tried their steamed chicken meatballs in sticky rice, homemade silky tofu, cold kamo duck appetizer, and wasabi octopus. I normally don’t like tofu at all, but I enjoyed their diy tofu.
DESSERTS — I look forward to ending a comforting meal here with their comforting dessert as well. Green tea affogato is a must! I love the coconut frozen berry dessert too!

Dipping soba is a must try here! The warm soba looks good as well, and I’m not a fan of cold soba so I haven’t tried those. Dipping soba wise — I love the kimchi and pork one as well as the mera mera. Skip these if you’re not into spicy broths. The desserts are solid choices here although they’re pretty small portions with the anin tofu, green tea affogato, and homemade mochi.
Remember like most places, they won’t seat you until the whole party is there, and it’s a small place so plan ahead!

I love this place — I do crave this once in a while, especially since it’s walking distance from my bf’s apartment. This is AWESOME for a cold day (NYC just turned icy cold recently, so this is probably a good time to go!!!).
Seating is pretty limited; they have some bar seats, some high stool seats, and maybe 4 seated tables. Usually there is a pretty long wait, so be sure to go when it first opens, or after regular dinner time (no reservations).
I usually get their warm sobas, and my favorite one is definitely their curry soba with pork. They have two sizes — a regular one, and a large one (which is usually $ 1~$ 2 more). I think it’s just a difference in the amount of soba they give you though. The sliced pork that they add in the curry soba is super flavorful and tender. The curry «soup» is also light enough that you can drink it after you finish all your noodles too :)! definitely warms you right up! To make things easier, I usually don’t opt for the dip soba, although it is a pretty interesting way to eat it, so give it a try if you’ve never had it (they give you the soup and noodles separately, and you just give the noodles a quick dip into the soup before slurping it up)! This ensures that your noodles don’t get overly soggy sitting in the soup I guess, though I’ve never had that problem.
Their service is pretty awesome/​fast and the quality is always on point. After your meal, they also serve up some hot green tea :).
This is 10 0000x better than their sister restaurant next door, Goemon, which you can totally skip!!! Their curry is meh!
***CASH ONLY!!!

four stars for Cocorn
Best place hangout with my co workers.
Great Location!
Soba: love do it urself, about four different way to eat soba ++
Desert: quality is overly better than Cha-​An. Not too sweet. ++
Services: They will send u the bill even u didn’t ask for it — — one star off
Policy: CASH ONLY, cash is King! — -
Overall, I still will go there often since I love their soba and desert.

I’m not the biggest noodle person. I know, eeeveryone loves pasta and noodles, right? Ok, so I’m a freak of nature and don’t find much appeal in it. It’s not to say I hate them, or won’t ever eat them, I just usually won’t order them off a menu. But, when you’re taken to a soba restaurant, well, you’re eating soba noodles. So, I was off to try out Cocoron in the Lower East Side.
The restaurant itself is small, quaint and cozy with some additional counter seating around a cooking station. The menu offers a whole variety of cold noodles, dipping noodle dishes, and ramen style bowls. I ordered their Warm Sansai Soba (deep fried tempura batter, simmered deep fried tofu, scallion, bamboo shoot, flowering fern, wood ear mushroom). First off, the portion is really generous, which, I’ll actually get to a gripe about that later. The fish broth is savory and flavorful, and all of the ingredients soak up that flavor like little sponges, especially the tempura batter and tofu. It’s definitely a great comfort dish, with the warmth of the hot food, the noodles, and savory broth. So, the flavors and dish were really great and tasty, but, there was a lot of it.
My main complaint is, you’re not allowed to take any of the rest to-​go. I did see that they had take-​away containers, but, they said it was their policy to not pack the noodles up because «it won’t taste good and the noodles will get soggy». Here’s my thing, I can appreciate a restaurant or company’s policy, I mean, it’s their place, they can make up any rules they’d like. However, when it comes to food waste, I have an issue. If the concern is that it won’t «taste good», let that be my concern, as long as a warning was given. Basically ½ of my meal ended up straight in the trash, which, doesn’t sit well with me. Whether I take it back with me to eat later, or find a hungry person on the street to feed, I feel like I should have that option. Policy or not, food waste really bothers me, especially when there are food rescue organizations like City Harvest out there, making that their mission. All of that is not to take away from the food quality or flavors, which, I really did enjoy, it’s just a part of the restaurant’s overall experience.

This place is soooooo delicious! I had the Mera Mera dip which is listed as ridiculously hot but I’d say is just a little spicy. It comes with a bubbling bowl of broth, a side of noodles, and towards the end of your meal, a box of noodle juice that you use to thin out the broth.
The actual restaurant is lacking pretty hard. There’s really no decoration or anything, just a black room, so for design/​atmosphere it gets low scores.
The other major complaint is for service, which is horrible. Three times we had to call people over for coming to get our dirty things, giving us the noodle box, ordering dessert, etc. There were only 2 other parties in the restaurant and we were only 3 but we may as well have been ghosts.

Came here on a Thursday night around 6PM and it wasn’t that crowded. There were some empty seats scattered throughout the restaurant. We made it just in time before the crowd because there was a line out the door by 7PM.
It was my first time here so I just ordered the highly recommended pork kimchee dip soba (warm). All I can say is. No Ragrets. The noodles were perfectly al dente, exactly how you’d want your ‘fresh’ soba to be. The pork kimchee broth was delicious IMO. I can see why some people would find it a little too salty for their liking but I thought it was just right. Every bite was a mouthful of flavor. My friend ordered the Nameko Oroshi soba (warm). I tried her soup and thought it was delicious as well even though it’s completely different compared to the pork kimchee broth. I would recommend getting the Nameko Oroshi (or anything similar to that) if you’re looking for something rather on the lighter side.
Overall, I definitely recommend checking this joint out if you’re around the area or just plain craving for some delectable soba noodles. Service was good and they were constantly refilling our water cups. The only downside is that they’re cash only but there are a few ATMs within walking distance.

Perfectly crafted soba noodles dipped in hot broth for a bargain price? Adorable, Japanese décor? Solid, efficient service? Sign me up! Aside from possibly suffering from possibly self-​induced sodium overload, Cocoron is an adorable noodle spot that is a bit tucked away.
We arrived at 7pm on a Sunday and there was about a 30 min wait, so we huddled in the front area by the coats. Keep in mind there’s minimal waiting space so you may also just want to put your name on the list and then walk around the neighborhood a bit before returning.
Seating is communal — we were seated as a party of three at a long table with a couple on either side of us. The menu is pretty long and coded with a plethora of icons, so, it may be overwhelming. My friend recommended the dip noodles (cold soba noodles dipped in boiling broth, sort of like hot pot) so I flipped to that section and picked the Japanese curry noodles with pork, size large. We also ordered Cocoran’s Homemade silky tofu as an appetizer. The Tofu came out quickly and was amazing. It was soft, melted in my mouth and had a lovely flavor and texture. Loved the side elements of seaweed slivers, scallions, soy sauce and ginger. Definitely try this.
My noodles were really great with a slightly bouncy texture that you’d want from fresh soba. The broth was quite salty — even after adding the hot water midway through the meal to water it down it was still a lot of salt for me to drink. I ended up just dropping my noodles in the broth for now more than a minute before consuming so I didn’t miss the delicate flavor of the noodles. I probably left over half of it. The large portion is very large — I managed to eat almost all of it but was stuffed so only order the large if you’re really hungry. The pork itself was tender and nicely flavored by the noodles.
We shared the green tea affogado for dessert which was an interesting twist on a classic. The green tea ice cream, mochi pieces and fruit were all great but the green tea syrup you pour on top was a little bitter for my taste. The cornflakes added some great texture and crunch and overall it was a good level of sweetness. Would recommend if you have space after your noodles!
Looking forward to returning here again to try the other options!

Ah.may.zing! I’m generally not a big fan of soba but this was absolutely delicious.
Pork kimchee dip soba — 5 sluuurp!
Coconut milk dessert — 5 I could eat 5 bowls of this!
Green tea affogato — 3 Not the first time I’ve had a japanese dessert where they combined green tea ice cream and corn flakes but this didn’t work as well for some reason
Service is interesting — they’re obviously accustomed to a different culture and don’t speak English well, but are still attentive, refilling our water multiple times. Will be back!

3.5 stars
Different. So used to having soba cold, this is an interesting twist.
The mixed seaweed was ok. Wasabi tako was as expected. We got the spicy dipping sauce — it was pretty good.

Cocoron is deemed to be healthy as said by the many newspaper articles posted on its window front. My friends were having a craving and told me this place was amazing so I went to try it.
It was a small area with about 25 or so seats so there will be a wait during the winter time as this place really warms up your insides. The concept of dipping the cold soba noodles into a saucey broth over fire was really interesting. I had ordered the kimchi pork and it was too salty for my taste and a tad sour due to the kimchi. The pork though was tender and delicious. Halfway through the meal they would come with water in a red pot so you can make the soba dip into a soba soup which was thoughtful. I thought since it was water it would dilute the saltiness of the sauce but it did not so I could not finish the soup.
The service was a miss, water was not refilled once though it was not a busy Friday at all because we went when they opened at 5:30pm. The broth was extremely salty so I really needed water and that irked me as they only came by to see us when we were done.
Though that incident occured, I will return to try out their other soba dips and hopefully it won’t be as salty as the one I had today.

Been meaning to visit Cocoron since seeing it on this Best Noodle Dishes list from 2014:
Didn’t realize there were actually two locations. The flagship is on Delancey, and the Kenmare location is bigger and easier to get seated.
Sat at the bar, and got to watch the staff at work. Service is quick, as I guess moving people in and out is very Japanese.
They’re known for their dip soba, which consists of slightly undercooked noodles that you dip in a boiling pot of broth (over an open flame). The broth is super salty and heavy, but that’s so after you’re done with the noodles, they pour water from a teapot in and you can drink it as soup. Very interesting, but I’m not sure if the concept was worth the effort.
I did the chicken burdock dip soba. Chicken was okay, kinda of amorphous. Noodles were fine, though I’m not the biggest fan of soba.
Also had the roast duck, which was a tad above room temperature and had a weird blueberry sauce. The duck itself was kind of rubbery and bland.
Not much to say other than that. Maybe if you’re a soba fan, it’s worth an extra star.

Gave cocoron another go because my friend and I were craving soba and this was the closest option. I was crossing my fingers that this would be better but at the end of the day I still found it just okay.
We started with the takowasabi, which was raw octopus with daikon. The octopus was fresh tasting but the dish is rather slimy feeling so I would avoid if you are a not of fan of that kind of texture.
This time I got the tofu daikon tip and added sliced pork. The soup was super creamy but was just all right to me. My friend got the mera mera tip with chicken meatballs added and that had a sweet undertone like the kimchee pork I previously had. Overall, the food is more affordable than others and price and quality is good. I guess it is just not to my palette’s liking.
I will say I did enjoy the actual soba. Nice and al dente.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES!
When I don’t know what to eat in the city I resort to Cocoron, and I always crave this place of deliciousness.
Honestly, I’ve gotten an appetizer once and it was meh but that was 1 time out of the like 10 times I’ve been here. If this place was close to my house I would definitely be a loyal customer and they would know my name. When I like something, I continue to eat it so yeah I only eat the pork and kimchi dip soba and it is AWESOMEEEE! Writing this review is making me salivate. You should definitely try the dip soba when you come here because it’s unique to this restaurant.
HIGHLY recommend eating here.
If you’re reading this you better be walking there.
Also you should definitely come to this location because the one on Delancey is so small the chair fits like half a butt.

Summer days have come to an end. Temperatures are beginning to drop and strong nightly breezes are starting to develop. Besides wanting to be in the arms of my significant other, cold nights like this get me craving for some broth and noodles, like the ones served at Cocoron.
The first time we visited, we were wandering around searching for a ramen spot. We found it, but it had limited and unavailable seating. A nice gentleman standing before the ramen joint suggested we walk a few blocks down to Cocoron, and so we did. The food, particularly the dip soba, or what they refer to as DIY food, seemed rather fun to eat, so I ordered the Mera Mera, and it was delish! Broth was flavorful and soba was fresh and elastic! My fiancé ordered a warm broth, think it was the kimchee, and I recall it being quite tasty as well. We also tried the chicken meatballs, which I would describe more as rice balls than chicken, but nonetheless they were pretty aromatic.
Last Friday, my fiancé and some friends decided to stop by again. This time, I ordered the Kashiwa, fiancé the Stamina and friends the Mera Mera and Kimchee, I believe. Boy did my warm broth hit the spot. They say it’s difficult to make simple food taste delicious and I certainly think the chefs at Cocoron have this down pat! Besides the food, the service here is also superb. The wait staff advised us to eat our noodles right away while it’s still fresh and hot, in an undemanding way. Water was provided almost instantaneously and after the meal, we were served a cup of hot tea.
I’ll surely be frequenting more often now that it is getting colder out. I’ll make some room for their appealing desserts next time!

An entire restaurant dedicated to soba four different ways, yes please!!! It’s a cozy place with friendly staff. The menu is also super extensive — there are four categories of noodles (cold soba, warm soba, cold dipping soba, and warm dipping soba) and each category has maybe 8 – 10 different takes on it. It’s an indecisive person’s nightmare because there are just so many options but don’t fear because it’s a food lover’s dream. After a long deliberation and assuring ourselves that we can come back again to try all the other dishes, we settled for warm dipping soba because we had never seen it before. My boyfriend went for the chicken burdock and I went for the Japanese curry style with pork.
The dipping broth was kept warm the entire meal over a burner that the server lit at our table. He also kindly explained how long to dip the ramen for and how to eat it. Both dishes did not disappoint! The soba was just the right chewiness. The broth was rich and flavorful without being too salty (though it will get saltier the longer it boils over the flame). Also when you’ve finished all your noodles but feel sad that you’re wasting all the broth, don’t worry because Cocoron’s gotchu. They give you the water that they boil the soba with to transform the leftover dip into a nice thin soup to drink. Last but not least, they offer green tea after your meal! It was a filling meal at a reasonable price. I’ll definitely be back to try the other dishes!