I was craving chilaquiles in the worst way last weekend. Really, I was jonesing for a Mexican or Central American breakfast of any variety. It didn’t need to be the salsa-covered corn-chip dish. Long story short, I did find some chilaquiles–flaccid, tasteless ones, in Leesburg. So the next day, my mind was still on finding a satisfyingly flavorful solution in Loudoun County. The answer, it turns out, was not chilaquiles, but a Chito’s Spanish Scramble.
It’s one of three egg dishes in the South of the Border Breakfasts section of the menu at Joe’s Café in Sterling. For a mere $10.49, I scratched my itch for eggs and salsa at the cozy, family-owned diner. But it required a wait. On Sunday around 1 p.m., the host let my party know it would be about 25 minutes before a table would be ready. This hinted that I had stumbled onto a good thing. We waited in the car for the phone call inviting us to our booth.
The next good sign? Seven different varieties of hot sauce stood at attention on the table, from chipotle Cholula to Sriracha. I ordered my Spanish Scramble with a side of grits, an opportunity for mismatched regional cuisines that I treasured. My other half ordered Nora’s Combo, a $10.99 assemblage of fluffy pancakes (or French toast or waffle) with a choice of meat (we got crispy bacon) and home fries, hash browns, or grits. With so many elements, both breakfasts came out in increments.
First, I received my sweet, crispy plantains and a pile of scrambled eggs woven with finely grated cheese. Then, there was the salsa verde, tangy and a bit spicy. It was exactly what I had been yearning for all weekend. Finally, there was a warm flour tortilla, big enough for a burrito, and a hulking bowl of butter-soaked grits.
It wasn’t the chilaquiles I initially had in mind, but if you can’t be with the breakfast you love, I say that at Joe’s Café, it’s easy to love the one you’re with.
45665 W. Church Rd., Sterling
Feature image by Alice Levitt
For more restaurant reviews, subscribe to our Food newsletter.
