Café Poca Cosa - Tucson, AZ

Posted By Michael Stern on July 23, 2009 2:02 PM

Café Poca Cosa has moved to a somewhat spectacular new location on E. Pennington in downtown Tucson. Gone is the explosion of colorful folk art everywhere. In its place is a sweeping, stylish dining room with objects of Mexican art on display as if in a museum. It's a cooler environment than before, perhaps not as hospitable-seeming as it once was. But the black-clad staff was nothing if not polite and solicitous; and more important, the food is on the same level of excellence that first put this place on the map of great southwest restaurants.

Proprietor Susanna Davila is an inspired chef, with a menu that changes a couple of times a day to reflect what chilies, spices, vegetables, and ingredients are fresh in the kitchen, and what her whim dictates. When you are seated, you are shown a portable blackboard with about a dozen choices on it, virtually all of which need to be explained. Nothing on this menu is familiar; certainly, there are no tacos, enchiladas, or burritos! Nor are there appetizers and side dishes from which to choose. Each dinner comes complete on a plate with exactly what the chef believes it should have.

You will find some glorious chicken molés, or perhaps the variant of molé known as pollo en pipian, for which boneless chicken is cosseted in sauce made from bitter chocolate, crushed red chilies, Spanish peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and cloves. You will always find a tamale pie (pasatel de elote) on the menu as a vegetarian alternative. But even if you are a devoted meat-eater, you must have it, for this tamale pie, is creamy comfort food supreme, tender as a soufflé, always dressed up a little differently, topped with vivid green chili puree or a sweet mango sauce or, on our most recent visit, curried carrots.

There is shredded beef (deshebrada) infused with smoky chili flavor and carne asada in different variations; there are seafood dishes and pork, too. Each entrée is presented heaped upon a plate along with a bright, fresh salad, so that whatever your main course is, it mixes with the greens and makes a happy mess of things. On the side come small warm corn tortillas; and for dessert, do not neglect the Mexican-flavored chocolate mousse (is that cinnamon we taste in it?) and the ultra-sultry square of flan, for which the soft custard is floated on a dish of deliriously sweet burnt-sugar syrup.

Overall Rating

Tamale Pie

Plato Poca Cosa

chicken mole

Chicken in Pumpkin Seed Mole

Flan

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Posted By Patty Burks on July 8, 2009 10:07 PM

We had to wait 15 minutes from being seated to seeing our waitress. Ten minutes later our drinks arrived. Frozen margaritas were only average. Another ten minutes for someone to take our order. Then the sun went down, and it was so dark in the seats along the back of the restaurant that we literally could not see our food. There was something on top of my chicken which, when I cut it up and tasted it, was a green chili, but you couldn't see it. My chicken was tough and tasteless.

This dump has the same name as the old Cafe Poca Cosa, but that is about it. You could not drag me into this disaster of a restaurant again. Doubly dismal because the entrees run about $25.

Overall Rating

Margarita

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Posted By Anne Ritchings on September 6, 2008 10:44 PM

Cafe Poca Cosa is where Chef Suzanna Davila plies her trade, cooking some of the best Mexican food I have ever had the pleasure to eat. The Cafe has moved to a new location on East Pennington Street and the new place is as lovely as the food. The dining room is a large open space with enough room between tables so that you don't feel as if you are participating in your neighbor's conversation whether you want to or not. The walls are a warm brick red, the ceiling black. The decor is modern, but not jarring or unpleasantly edgy.

We began with margaritas and the house's complimentary salsa and chips. The salsa is made with chipotle peppers, with flecks of cilantro and hints of coriander and cumin. We couldn't stop eating it. The margarita reminds me that presentation is almost everything. These drinks are as beautiful as they are delicious. We feasted twice--first with our eyes and then with our taste buds.

The menu is presented on a blackboard since it changes daily depending on what is fresh and available. Our server enthusiastically explained each of the items, and they needed explanation. This is not a typical Tex-Mex or even American-Mexican place. Neither of us could decide what we wanted so we both ordered the Plato Poca Cosa. Each plate contains three items from the menu and every plate is different. We sampled a tamale enrobed in beet sauce, pollo mole amarillo (almonds and sesame seeds), carne in chipotle/plum sauce, pollo chile colorado, carne asada with green peppers, onions, and roasted tomatoes, and a tamale con salsa blanca (cheese and white wine sauce). Davila's sauces are ethereally light and perfectly balanced. Every bite is Mexican food bliss. Her mole makes me want to hop a plane for Oaxaca.

Dessert was chocolate cheesecake served with berries and honest-to-God whipped cream. It was fabulously delicious.

This restaurant is so good that it, alone, could make Tucson a place worth visiting. At $34.00 each, including tip, it is a steal.

Overall Rating

Plato Poca Cosa

Chocolate Cheesecake

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