The 1966 paella western The Texican starred Audie Murphy as a former Texas lawman on the lam in Mexico who rides back across the border to avenge his newspaperman brother’s death at the hands of the town’s crooked political boss, Luke Starr, played by a well-lubricated Broderick Crawford. Murphy’s character, Jess Garlin, who up until then was living easy with his Mexican girlfriend, is a good stand-in for the weird border cuisine that developed over the centuries among Tejanos, pre-Republican Texans of Spanish or Mexican descent. For one thing, he’s pretty cheesy. And not very spicy.
You can find a few of those treatments on the brief breakfast-and-lunch menu. Take it to go or stay at one of the handful of tables where you’ll very likely hear David Byrne and George Jones before Selena or Los Palominos. There’s Topo Chico in the display case along with Mexican Coke and La Colombe coffee on ice, as well as a stretch of Texas sheet cake black as an oil spill.
There’s a fairly tight border between breakfast and lunch at Texican. You likely can’t get those breakfast tacos after 11 AM. Same goes for the chorizo breakfast sandwich lightly tinged cilantro-green on ciabbatta with scrambled eggs and Wisconsin brick cheese (approximating traditional asadero), and the rajas quiche, a slice of egg pie with roasted poblano strips.
869 N. Larrabee 312-877-5441texican-chicago.com
