Cocoron

This is one of those restaurants that you love so much that you are torn between not wanting to tell anyone (for fear that the secret will suddenly be out and it will be impossible to get a table from that point on) and telling everyone because it was just that good.  I know that the friend who told me about Cocoron also suffered from the same dilemma because he has repeatedly told me so.  I wish I could keep this place to myself but it's just too good.  I also wish that it was down the street instead of a solid 30-40 minutes on the metro (depending on trains), but such is life.  It is worth the trip.  As we were walking out the door Alex kept going on and on about how happy he was with our lunch.  I agreed with him.  Lunch was perfect.  Every dish we had was just... well, perfect.

We started with the Daikon Mochi, which their online menu describes as "sticky rice cake - daikon radish, bacon, baby shrimp with yuzu pepper."  The mochi was pillowy in texture, but really sticky and gummy at the same time.  None of those adjectives sound super appealing and I honestly don't know how to describe the texture of it, but man it was tasty.  It was also completely unique.  I have never tried anything even remotely like it.  Then I had the Stamina Soba (pictured above), which involved a little raft of ice cold soba noodles that I dipped into a hot porky broth full of ground pork, some thinly sliced pork, a chicken meatball and shiitake mushrooms.  It was amazing.  The soba noodles themselves were wonderfully chewy and flavorful.  I have never had soba that was this good.  Alex ordered a cold soba special that featured boiled thinly sliced pork (briefly boiled and then shocked in a bath of ice water), freshly grated daikon and a sesame sauce.  As we were sitting at the bar the Japanese family next to us ordered a few bowls of another special - ikura cold soba (soba with huge, plump salmon roe, daikon and shiso leaf on top).  It looked incredible, but my Stamina Soba was so good that I barely had any ordering envy at all.  After all of that ramen I was pretty full, but I couldn't resist dessert.  I was torn between their mochi ice cream with soy bean powder and their black sesame cheesecake, but we went with the mochi.  I wasn't a big fan of the soy bean powder on its own.  It reminded me of pulverized peanuts mixed, but powdery like flour.  It didn't provide a lot of flavor, but it gave the mochi ice cream a nice texture.  It was the perfect end to a great meal.

More pictures after the jump!