When you adopt a cat, you usually want to wait a few weeks to observe his personality before the christening. So you end up referring to him simply as “Cat” for a while, then you come with some complicated formal name like “Chairman Meow” and finally, a name for everyday use, like “Tom.”
This is the same process that Xuco Xicana (pronounced “Chuco Chicana”) went through during its re-branding shift from El Patio to “El XX,” or what have you. The Midtown restaurant is also making the shift from Tex-Mex to more interior Mexican cuisine under the influence of chef Jonathan Jones of Beavers, who is acting as concept designer, and the menu is currently around 80 percent revised. A new sign should be arriving any day.
Chefly Tex-Mex has gotten a lot of attention in this town lately and between hype fatigue and a famously strong margarita (at happy hour prices all Tuesday long), I sat at my table not expecting or desiring a thing from my meal. Luckily, it all turned out to be good.
Enchiladas verdes, stacked Texas-style, were everything they should be and topped with a fried egg for added satisfaction. The pork shoulder tacos marinated in pasilla, clove, cinnamon and orange were velvety, rich and slightly sweet. A plate of tortillas “enchiladas,” or tortillas drenched in guajillo and acho chile and topped with a pile of shredded lettuce and queso fresco, came highly recommended by our waiter who gushed that they were exactly like those his dad used to make. But for a person not nostalgic for their simplicity, they didn’t hold enough interest for the length of an entrée. The rice was mild, and thank God for that because the hot wangs (wings, for the uninitiated) more or less had me on fire. An attractive sprinkling of queso fresco and the sticks of sweet jicama and cucumber, while delicious, didn’t do much in terms of tempering the heat.
Service at El Patio usually gets lambasted, which may explain why I had the most apologetic waiter of all time. He couldn’t have been more sorry for forgetting to put in my chicken wing order or not hearing me the first time I asked for a to-go box to the point where I had to assure him he had not ruined my evening and that he still had value as a human being.
Despite the big-name chef and ambitious concept change, El XX is serving up the kind of satisfying food that I hope has us inspired to stop talking and start simply eating.
XUCO XICANA/EL XX/EL PATIO, 2416 Brazos bet. Webster & McGowen, 713-523-8181