Mika Leon is a third-generation Cuban-American who runs Caja Caliente in Coral Gables, the casual Cuban-American spot named after the Spanish word for an oven you make on a beach. She is in her late twenties. Her grandmother, Berta, taught her to make ropa vieja before she could read.
Bobby Flay against a Cuban grandmother's ropa vieja is not a fair fight. Ropa vieja translates as "old clothes" — the visual is shredded flank steak that looks like a pile of fabric — and it is the dish that, in any Cuban-American household, exposes whether the cook learned at home or in a restaurant. Restaurant ropa vieja is fine. Home ropa vieja, simmered for four hours with green olives, capers, white wine, and the kind of patience that only your grandmother had time for, is the dish itself.
Mika brought her grandmother's version. Bobby brought a restaurant version. The judges chose Berta.