Hubba hubba Soba Soba

On a steaming hot July afternoon we popped into Cocoron, where Japanese soba, a thin noodle made from buckwheat flour, is always the plat du jour.  It's conveniently located for us at 61 Delancey Street on the Lower East Side. Cocoron is a small little noodle joint with counter seating and a smattering of tables that would probably feel crowded with 20 people in it. On the day we went, it was busy enough with 10 other diners plus the four other people cooking and a waitress. It was hot too, the air conditioning labored on with nary a cooling breeze to be had.. There is a lot of activity in the kitchen, because just about everything at Cocoron is made from scratch, and it shows.

Noodle team GO!!

There is quite a selection of soba dishes, many of them cold, to choose from and dip in homey Japanese Curry sauce, pork and soy based broths, sesame paste, and even some vegetarian options. But lets not jump ahead. We started our meal with a miso cole slaw and some kimchee, which for a fermented cabbage lover like me is hard to resist.

Miso cole slaw (above) and kimchee

These were small portions but very tasty and priced nicely at $2.50 each. Although I liked the kimchee,  I'm not sure that item is made on the premises and I will probably opt only for the cole slaw next time , which was chilled and extremely refreshing given the heat of the day, not to mention pretty to look at.

For those uninitiated in the soba way, the waitress will bring you an  instructional leaflet detailing exactly how to eat your noodles, but somehow we amateur soba eaters made do without them. You can either dip the cold noodles in a sauce or order them hot in a soup. As a curry lover, Ian couldn't resist the chicken curry option with cold noodles. I decided to try the Stamina soba with thin slices of delicious pork, served in a hot soy/pork broth with a very full but clean flavor with soy and miso notes..

Soba with Chicken curry

You get a nice portion of Soba

Stamina soba- finishing was no problem

Preparing to attack

A friend of Ian's mentioned that Soba changes flavor according to the time of year when the buckwheat was harvested. Our noodles had a beautiful mouth feel and were cooked to a  perfect al dente texture. They were so fresh you they almost tasted the field and they had a fleeting, beery finish that I really enjoyed. I could see that the noodles, as with everything else, were made with great care and treated with respect, which is important. A disrespected noodle can do enormous arterial damage if it has the mind to. I believe that these noodles were loved. In any case, I didn't have to reach for the Tums after my meal. Here is a peek at what Ian's dish looked like when it arrived at the table:

Meanwhile, Ian was really enjoying a very large plate of noodles that are actually weighed out on a scale in the open kitchen. To get a big plate of fresh and delicious noodles like that- all for you- it's just..... exciting. I had noodle envy- the noodles in my hot soup didn't look as big in the broth so next time I'll be chasing that heaping plate sensation. The curry wasn't as thick as most Japanese curries I have tried but was very flavorful without actually being spicy. If you require to turn up the heat a little bit, there are pepper shakers on the counter with a dry red pepper mix the Japanese favor in their soups. After the noodles are consumed, a hot pitcher is brought around. It's full of near boiling water that the soba had been cooked in minutes before and poured into the leftover curry sauce, which you can drink as a soup. The starchy noodle water thickens the curry and adds some of the buckwheat flavor and is certainly something to look forward to when you finish your heaping plate of noodles too quickly as we did.

Hot soba-seeped water is added to the broth

In the name of the blog, we decided to finish off the meal with a little dessert. We tried the house made Mochi, a Japanese treat of ice cream served frozen in a dough wrapping. At Cocoron, the Mochi is served on a mound of soy powder, which actually tastes like cocoa. It was delicious and the dough was as fresh as the noodles, although at $5.50 we would have preferred more than one piece. However, one has to acknowledge the attention to detail and the freshness of the ingredients. Yes, we could have had 4 pieces of store-bought prepackaged Mochi for that price, but  would they have been remembered so well?

Mochi love

Earlier in the week, we had eaten at one of our old standby's,Yogee noodle for Beef stew with Chow Fon noodle, reviewed here. That delicious meal came to $11 for both of us, an even $13 with tip, but man cannot live by Yogee noodle alone. Our lunch at Cocoron came in at a whopping $38, cash only,  which we rounded up to $45 with a tip. On top of that, it was my turn to treat, so it was a fairly damaging lunch from a financial standpoint. Ian's curry noodles were $14.50, and mine were $10. On the other hand, there are more economical options on the menu, starting at about $8. I feel that the quality of the ingredients, the care of the preparation, and the fresh flavor of the food merits the price. If we can practice some restraint, this is a restaurant that we would like to add to our weekly or monthly rotation. At a minimum,  we are going to need to taste the soba in every season to find out which one we like best. At Cocoron, there are a lot of soba combinations to explore, and we are planning to eat our way through the menu one dish at a time.