ROBERTO GUERRA
Mr. Guerra, who was born in Cuba and who lives and works in Miami, related a story about how the Chinese Army tortured its prisoners with heat and how somehow this had led Cubans to develop a sort of cooking that in turn resulted in the invention of the box, by his father, in the early 1980's.
This yarn seemed apocryphal at best. Mr. Guerra and I were talking on the phone, but it did not seem impossible that he shrugged his shoulders in agreement. La Caja China is not a good or a service - It's an experience. It's a culture. It's about the age-old mainstays of good food, good friends, and good times. It's rugged but romantic. Requiring butchering, braising, brining and handling. It's charcoal and chatter. As the food cooks, the aromas become as enticing as the spectacle itself. It becomes not just a conversation piece, but a conversation starter.
Most of all, La Caja China is realizing that in 4 hours you've made a delicious, authentic meal that ended up feeding your soul.
