Cocolee
Assembly Row in Somerville is packed with places to shop, stroll and snack, but if you’re looking for bold flavors, vibrant cocktails, and a dining experience that’s as stylish as it is satisfying, Cocolee is the spot to be. First opening in the Spring of 2025, Cocolee gives guests a fun and tasty tiki bar experience- rain or shine, because the restaurant takes inspiration from the South Asian culture Executive Chef Quang Tran was raised on. “The menu we have is pan Asian.” “It's a lot of flavor that I grew up with, and it’s a lot of flavor that I was fortunate enough to try when I was traveling around…but we're trying to do something that is approachable and kind of introduce the people of the local areas to that kind of flavor.”
Cocolee offers elevated takes on the classic Asian dishes you know and love. Like their Vegetable egg rolls with Bamboo shoots and house made plum sauce. The Crab basil fried rice, with fresh blue crab, green beans, tons of that Thai basil, along with house made chili oil, and a fried egg to top it all off. Or, check out the Shishito peppers, topped with Japanese BBQ sauce, “Kewpie” mayo, and bonito flakes which are shaved so thin, they’re look like they’re swaying in the wind. But if you’re craving a comfort food classic, Chef Tran says go with the Lemongrass Chicken Dumplings. “So the lemongrass chicken dumpling is a play on a classic Vietnamese dish.” “When we're coming up with ideas for dumpling that were one of the first thing we tested. So it's essentially ground chicken that we mix with lots of lemongrass, lots of chili, a little bit of chives, and we fold it into a little dumpling, steam it. Very simple, very straightforward, but delicious.” “I wouldn’t call it spicy, but I would call it a little kick.”
If you are craving something actually pretty spicy, you gotta go for the Dan Dan noodles. “Dan Dan noodle is a very traditional dish from Sichuan, China. It's a base of a chili, like a creamy chili sauce. At the bottom you get these, like thick, like egg noodle, and then ground pork that's cooked down with lots of Sichuan peppercorn. And then the trick to it is pickled mustard green that we cook into it. And so you get, like, a layer, you get essentially layers of spicy noodle pork, and then a little bit of, like cooked greens on top… It just delicious all around.”
At lunchtime, Cocolee offers a bento box so you can try a little bit of everything. We went with the Lamb Cumin noodle, chili lime shrimp, their chili cucumber salad which is great and refreshing, and of course, the Crab rangoon. Cocolee has turned the classic Rangoon into a gourmet experience, actually using real, fresh Blue Crab. “We didn't want to do your typical Chinese takeout crab rangoon… So our for our version, we stuff our rangoons with… jalapeno and ginger cream cheese, and then we top that with fresh picked blue crab and then a little bit of sweet chili sauce to kind of like tie the whole thing over.”
For bigger portions, Cocolee’s large plates are built for sharing, and they all bring some seriously huge flavor. First up, their chili shrimp. We’re talking massive marinated shrimp, grilled to perfection, laid over veggie fried rice, and served with everything you need to build your own masterpiece. “It comes with lettuce for lettuce wraps, fluffy steamed buns that you can make little steam bun sandwiches out of our house pickles, our house cucumber salad and our cabbage salad. So the whole thing is more of like a feast… for the whole table.”
Or go for the Roasted Five Spice Duck, this crispy-skinned, flavor-packed Long Island duck breast is brushed with a house-made glaze that’s sweet, savory, and totally addictive. “To me, the perfect bite with the duck would be a Fluffy Bao bun, just a slice of duck in it, a little bit of our house pickle vegetable and… just a little bit of one of our two sauces. And that's it. You don’t need to do anything more, let the duck and the bun do all the work.”
Of course, no tiki-inspired spot is complete without a killer bar and Cocolee’s cocktails are as creative as the food, like the namesake drink: The Cocolee Martini. “it's our play on an Espresso Martini.” “What it is is we get in this awesome coconut rum. We mix it with a little bit of vanilla vodka, some very strong Vietnamese coffee… delicious coconut milk, and then just finish up with a little bit of sweetness from sweetened condensed milk.” “serve up in a beautiful martini glass.”
I mean, how could you not love this place? It’s trendy, it’s tasty, and it’s totally worth the trip. So settle in with a cocktail in a flamingo glass, share some dumplings and rangoons, and let Cocolee take you on a flavor journey you won’t forget. “We want people to come in and get a great Tiki drink and just enjoy the great Tiki vibe” “You can definitely come here any time of the year and just feel like you're on vacation.”
