Cocoron

(I’m sorry.)

This might just be my new favorite noodle shop above all else.

I LOVE SOBA. I’ve known about Cocoron for a while but it’s out of the way and blah, blah, blah, do you guys want to hear my excuses for why I’m slow to do certain things? No? So let’s get to the food.

Kara age, or Japanese fried chicken; a boneless (maybe skinless?) chicken thigh that’d been marinated and then fried with a crispy, slightly sweet shell. This was really good. $5 good? Maybe not. But it was good.

Jared, the adventurous one, ordered natto soba. This required some work on his part – grinding sesames into a fine meal to sprinkle atop his bowl of soba. I tried the natto. I didn’t die. If you don’t know what it is and have a weak stomach, don’t look it up. I didn’t think it was anything amazing nor gross (well, I knew what it was before I tried it, and had thought the description gross, but once I ate it, the taste wasn’t gross). I actually thought it’d taste more like huitlacoche, which I found harder to wrap my head around as a concept, but truly delicious (it tastes like super earthy mushrooms). But natto was… eh. Just sticky. Anyway, back to the soba: his set looked pretty interesting, with lots of things to toss together and mix as you please, which, as this wasn’t his first time, he knew exactly what to do and what he liked.

Since I was feeling rather ambivalent, I let Jared pick for me and this came: soba shabu, with sesame dressing. The meat and grated mountain yam on top were both big “meh” for me. The sesame dressing could have been more sesame-y. But the noodles?

omfgwtf the noodles

They were springy, chewy, delicate but sturdy, and coated with the sesame dressing were omfgiwantmorerightnow. All these years of me sitting on my butt and not going here for my soba needs were a waste. I want and I need these noodles in my life, at least once a week for the rest of time.

Nutty, as good soba is; chewy; springy; flavorful without overpowering, assertive without controlling, each noodle was just exactly what I look for in soba!

I’ll have to actually look over the menu myself and order accordingly next time; I don’t think they have inaka soba but if they do! or I’ll stick to my kamo seiro (duck) soba… mmm soba

Mmm

You should go here immediately