Las Collinas, Fort Laudedale

Although I live and work in Denver, and where most of my writing will center, I travel quite a bit throughout the year.  And unless I’m visiting a city I have been before where I know a restaurant is so good I musn’t pass it up while I’m in town, I will always visit a new restaurant.

While in For Lauderdale this month, the people I was travelling with took me to a place that was so good I swore I’d be back.  This place was Los Collinas and if you ever make it to South Florida, please promise me you will stop in and have anything off the menu.  Really, anything.

The restaurant is on the corner of a street that is more or less inviting if you speak Spanish.  Looking around the block the storefronts are plastered with Spanish posters and advertisements for calling cards to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico. Yet, right next door you can have your dog groomed at the Bitches and Studs Groomers.  I need neither a calling card nor a groomer.  Just a filling breakfast.

Opening the doors to Las Colinas, a blast of icy air rushes past my face– a welcomed feeling after being in the Florida heat in the middle of the summer—and we take a seat near the back.  The tile floor is white and there are more ceiling fans than fingers on my hands.  It looks like a typical diner except I can smell something already that I can tell I won’t be able to find at the local IHop.

The waitress comes over to our table and immediately can tell we are 1) not from around here and 2) do not speak Spanish.  So she does her best at English and smiles and asks us how our day is.

She brings us our café con leche and asks us for our order.  The menu is frightening.  There are English translations but these aren’t the words of a poet.  They are simple and without rhythm.  White bean soup.  Scrambled eggs and ham with vegetables.  Bacon sandwich.

I ask, please, for the Desayuno Las Colinas.  I figure if the name of the joint is in this dish, it has to be good.  Plus the group of people I am with cannot and will not stop talking about this dish.

What I am served smells like the very thing I have been looking for in a Latin restaurant.  On my plate is a non-attempt at beauty but a home run in flavor.  A very thin piece of steak is seasoned and flavored so well that after swallowing my first bite I almost forgot everything else on the plate.  It is so tender and so moist I can actually use the word incredible.  If I were ever able to get a steak this tender and juicy I would have stopped this search a long while ago.

I am also served what they call home fries.  But these aren’t the kind of home fries you have when eating at a barbecue.  These home fries are large pieces of potatoes that are nearly orange in color from the seasonings and so soft you swear they boiled them first.  And who knows, maybe they did.  I also have two eggs I ordered sunny side up and also have a small cup of salsa that looks almost like pico de gallo but is more watery, has much more tomatoes and tastes nothing like pico although I can see nearly no difference in ingredients.  I slice my eggs apart so that the beautifully yellow yolk runs into everything pulling my meal together.  The yolk is my favorite part of the egg and until I’m old enough I’ll not worry about cholesterol.  Cuban bread, which I can only assume is soft bread and butter that is flattened in a press so that it is warm, crispy and flaky, is served to everyone and thus begins this meal.

I take a small bite of the steak and then a small bite of potatoes and smear them both in the creamy yolk.  Then a bite of bread and a gulp of coffee.  And suddenly it hits me.  The flavors of this breakfast fit together so well, so much better than any glove on any hand.  I have the greatest idea in the world.  I slice a small bite off my steak and on top of that I put a bit of egg and rub them both in the yolk.  And on top of the egg I layer some of the home fries.  And to garnish my small creation I put salsa.  Getting this bite, which I am so excited to eat, is rather difficult to get onto my fork because I don’t want it to fall apart.  If you decide to eat the meal this way be sure to be with close friends.  I open my mouth much wider than I would any yawn and bite into this soaring tower of breakfast.

The flavors of the spice from the steak and the sweetness of the salsa collide and weave in my mouth molding the familiar flavors of my plate and, somehow, create an almost new and different flavor that can only come from the small laborious work of creating the Las Colinas Scraper, as it will hereforth be known.

This meal is completely filling and wholly delicious.  Everything, down to the amount of salt in the meal, is perfect and it can be seen from the waitress to the owner (who is walking around in an apron speaking to everyone in both English and Spanish) that this is much more than a diner.  The people all know each other.  Although there is no art to the plating of the food, there is a sense of pride in each plate.  Not to mention the coffee always fresh and my cup always full.  And. AND! This is one of the cheapest breakfasts I’ve ever had, literally less than $10 for both coffee and breakfast.

Leaving Las Colinas I was warmed by the outside heat.  Nearly overwhelmed by it, but I couldn’t care less.

Las Colinas

2724 North Andrews Avenue
Wilton Manors, FL 33311
(954) 390-7410

$35, for breakfast for four