Cocoron

The instructions were simple enough: dip the soba into the "stamina," slurp, swallow, brace yourself for a shock of invigoration. So, OK, we made up that last part, but we really did feel rejuvinated after a recent lunch at Cocoron, the tiny Japanese noodle shop on Delancey. Our happy feelings certainly stemmed from getting a table in a restaurant that fills up fast, but also from the food. In addition to the stamina dip, which had meatballs whose inverse relationship between size and flavor would make Italian grandmothers weep with envy, we sampled the pork and okra croquettes; homemade silky tofu, whose bites glided in our mouths like elegant fish; and vegetable soba, topped with so many bubbles, which looked like baked mozzarella but tasted like salt-free sea foam.