Step into Mojo Cuban Kitchen and Rum Bar and be immediately transported into the Land of Sabor.
The place is casual and inviting but best of all, it’s a scratch kitchen. Every dish is created from fresh ingredients. They bake their own bread and even venture into the desert to harvest prickly pear fruit.
Owner Nick Schaffer readily admits he is “not Cuban and never claimed to be,” he said, “but I genuinely fell in love with the food, the rum culture, the music as I experienced it, spending a lot of time in South Florida.”
Start your flavorful journey with a starter of frituras de maiz (fried corn fritters with prickly pear sauce). Move on to the Taste of Havana plate, which comes with a sample of ropa vieja (it means old clothes but that’s not what you get), Mojo chicken and Lechón asado. Finish the meal off with dessert, maybe pastelitos. Wash it all down with a mojito (or two) made with the freshly harvested prickly pear. A nonalcoholic version is also available.
Better yet, try out this very meal during restaurant week, Sept. 4 to 12, when many restaurants around town will feature a fixed price meal. This one, for two, costs only $45. Tax and tip are separate.
Yes, it’s not just back to school, it’s also back to eating out and the Old Pueblo’s restaurateurs want you to give them a try. More than a hundred restaurants are offering special menus that are fixed price. Mojo is one of them.
But back to Schaffer and Cuban food.
“My approach is to approach it with humility and respect the traditions,” he said.
Schaffner came to Tucson with his job and while here he noticed a hole in the restaurant market: There were no Cuban restaurants around. Since his background is in food service, he took the plunge. Now, four years later he is still serving up Cuban sandwiches and chicharrones, among other things like a pan de bistec (steak sandwich).
One of the reasons he is successful is he continually educates his staff.
“We take key members of our team to Miami to experience how Cuban food should be,” Schaffer said.
Interestingly, as with Mexican food in the United States that had to be adapted to the ingredients found here so it was with Cuban food. Today’s Cuban food found on our shores may not be the same as that on the island. Still, a food culture emerged. Schaffer is working at bringing it further along.
“One of the directions we like to go in is to introduce some Sonoran flavors into (Cuban food),” he said. “It’s never been done before.”
Although Mexican food and Cuban food are similar, they are not the same.
In Cuban food, there’s “a lot more use of citrus and garlic flavors, not a lot of spiciness so it’s very flavorful but not the heat from ingredients like jalapenos or chile peppers,” Schaffer said. “That’s used less frequently in the traditional core dishes.”
Most of the dishes served at Mojo come with rice, beans and meduros (sweet fried plantains).
“We don’t do anything to the plantains,” he added. “You cook them and they’re naturally sweet.”
Schaffer admits he’s never been to Cuba but it is very hard to get there and “Miami’s really the epicenter of Cuban food
Because everything is freshly prepared, Mojo’s day begins even before the sun is up. At about 5 a.m. someone is in the kitchen making desserts and bread. After that there’s prep work: chopping, cooking beans and dehydrating fruit for garnishes, among other things.
Chef Giulian Buzila recognizes the importance of Tucson Restaurant Week.
“There are a lot of people willing to try new cultures, he said. “New culture means new food. (Restaurant Week) is an interesting gateway to get people to try new food.”
