Check, Please! at XNI-PEC SEP 5

To LTHForum users,

First, we want to thanks to all you wonderful LTHForum users, you have been a grate help for us, Xni-Pec, we know that thanks to this website we have been best known. Different media types have been in our restaurant and next Wednesday September 5th Check, Please! Popular restaurant review program will be in our Restaurant shooting for the new season where we will be included.
We want to invite to LTHForum users to join us September 5th to dinner, show shooting in dinner area will be between 7 PM and 8 PM and we will have different Yucatan Dishes including Relleno Negro, Queso Relleno, and the entire menu that you already have seen. Also between 6 PM and 8 PM this same day we will have 2 x 1 in all Margaritas and Beer. We will be glad to have everyone in our restaurant and be part of it; this serve as thanks to all of you, we really hope you can joins us September 5th to dinner at XNI-PEC.

Check, Please! Web Site (Chicago's PBS affiliate, WTTW 11)

http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,5

XNI-PEC Web Site

http://www.xnipec.us/

For more Info you can write me and e-mail to: antonio.contreras@xnipec.us or send me a PM here.


Thanks,
Antonio


PD: We won’t take Reservation for this day.

Antonio, the honor will be ours. Xni-Pec is richly deserving of all the positive attention in the city. I will raise a michelada to your health and to your family, and hope that your home-made hot sauce will raise more than a few eyebrows that night.

How splendid -- what a gracious invitation. I have a prior engagement, but I will try to postpone it or break it

Sonja

On further thought -- I will be there -- I am so into the Mayans -- in that Calendar I am 4 Men 3 Chen -- I learned this week that Chichinitza is in MEXICO, not Guatemala, the Caracol is 88W30 -- Rome like Chicago is 41N52, Saint Peter's 41n56+ -- the crossroads of the Caracol and St Peters is a cornfield somewhat to the west of us -- the old & new world spiritual centers

... I have no wheels, depend on public transportation ... and will figure out how to get there timely

I need a contact for Yucatan coffee which I want to blend with a Roman roast -- the blend name is "Hooch" which was a soubriquet of Robert Maynard Hutchins who was born 12 hours after Al "Snorky" Capone in Brooklyn, 17 January 1899 -- if anyone wants to read my essay on "Snorky & Hooch -- Mind & Heart of Chicago, from the St. Valentine's Massacre to the RMH Inauguration, Feb-Dec 1929" please let me know.

Sonja

Masa from that cornfield made into some sort of hors de oeuvre to munch on while sipping hooch

my fantasy total sacrament -- something to have during the eclipse next week on 9/11 -- would you believe its exactitude is 8:44 am? Which was the time the first plane hit

Definitely worth an O Wow which sounds like Ahau -- A very cool Mayan calendar day god

Welcome to my fantasy.

Sonja

Dear Antonio,

thanks so much for letting everyone on LTH know about this, and congratulations about being on Check Please.

Antonius will be out of the country but Lucantonio and I plan to come for dinner on the 5th. See you (and other LTH-ers) then.

Best wishes,
Amata

P.S. Congratulations also for the nice mention of Xni-Pec and photo of your papadzules in the current issue of Gourmet magazine!

Antonio,

The Wife and I will do our best to be there (I'm guessing it would be advisable to get there a little early?).

You survived the LTH Effect, which I'm sure was good training for surviving the Check, Please Effect.

Hope to see you Wednesday,

David

PIGMON and I will be there!

The DH and I will be there - looking forward to it. We'll probably arrive around 7, is that too late?

I'm going to try to convince figjustin we need a night off. If I'm successful, this might be our first time at Xni Pec.

I'm working at the Knot at 9 so I would have to leave by...oh 8:00 or so I think to get back in time. What time are people showing up for dinner?

Octarine wrote:I'm working at the Knot at 9 so I would have to leave by...oh 8:00 or so I think to get back in time. What time are people showing up for dinner?

I'm thinking we may try to arrive around 6:45, though I'm not sure it matters.

I have never had the pleasure of eating at Xni-Pec. But, I have heard so many wonderful things about it, I will plan to attend to show support for your commitment to serving authentic Mayan and Yucatan specialties in Chicago.

I'll introduce you to the Santander Special, Will, which is two masa cakes filled with cotija cheese, cochinita pibil, spicy habanero pepper rajas, and spicy pico de gallo. It is up to you and Carmelo to decide if I'm making this up.

My guess, though I don't know for sure of course, is that they'd want it to look reasonably normal, rather than one big huge group. So if we end up sitting at smaller groups of 2, 4, 6 and don't all arrive at once, that's probably OK, yes?

sitting at smaller groups of 2, 4, 6 and don't all arrive at once

I agree, we plan on arriving somewhere between 6 and 7. There is just us two so I wouldn't mind sitting with another one or two people, but I don't think it should be one large group.

Would anyone like a spare diner at their table? I was hoping my husband would be available, but he has a class tonight. Please let me know if you are reading this thread!

Nora

We would love for you to join us...

You are certainly welcome to join Lucantonio and me, if some other table doesn't wave you over first. I imagine you will have plenty of choices of groups to join!

Amata

Thank you, Amata for the quick offer, but Molly got a hold of me so I'm going to sit with her group. However, if there are too many small groups, we could always 'group together' so we can sample more things...

Looking forward to dinner tonight!

I'm all for making groups and tasting more stuff

So since it looks like we'll be coming on the later side of things (7 ish) can someone wave us over when we arrive? For those of you who won't recognize me, my husband will be in a blue walking cast with a cane

Nice meeting all of you yesterday, I didn't expect LTH'ers there. Thanks for coming out and showing your support for such a wonderful restaurant. Binko and I ended up staying until 1:30AM with Antonio and his family. The singing kept going, he took a break for a while and then was back to it. The negra modelos and mayan honey liquor shots kept coming, so how could I say no? I don't think my bottle ever reached empty and they would have one cracked open for me ready to go. They were even concerned that if we couldn't get home, they offered us a place to stay the night.

Okay, back into the shadows I go....

Mike

It's that kind of a place.

Now my fingers are just crossed that Check, Please! manages to keep them fully and gainfully afloat, while not making them quite as packed and overwhelmed as last night. In addition to bringing in city gourmands, my hope is that the local community will swell to support them and take pride in them.

I already know the answer to that since the table taping with the C.P. host was already completed. Xni Pec will be more than OK

We really enjoyed our meal. I'm not sure it's worth trekking diagonally across Chicago on a regular basis for, but it is definitely good food and lovely people. Hammond - you'll let me know if we owe more than we left when we left, yes?

leek wrote: I'm not sure it's worth trekking diagonally across Chicago on a regular basis for...

I swear, sometimes it sounds like people talk about Cicero like it's bordering on Iowa or something. It's just a quick shot down 290 (well, a quick shot when 290 isn't a cluster*&*#). 94 > 290 > Cicero exit, you're practically there. 20 minutes from the Loop.

Binko wrote:

leek wrote: I'm not sure it's worth trekking diagonally across Chicago on a regular basis for...

I swear, sometimes it sounds like people talk about Cicero like it's bordering on Iowa or something. It's just a quick shot down 290 (well, a quick shot when 290 isn't a cluster*&*#). 94 > 290 > Cicero exit, you're practically there. 20 minutes from the Loop.

The Laramie exit off 290 puts you even closer to Xni-Pec. For us on the Near West Side, it's a ridiculously quick trip. Wed night we were home in 12 minutes.

I had a great time with everyone on Wed night, and it was especially fun to meet in person some of the folks I knew only by screen name. Maybe we should have another gathering at Xni-Pec when the Check Please show airs?

Binko wrote:I swear, sometimes it sounds like people talk about Cicero like it's bordering on Iowa or something.

Binko,

I live near Cicero/Peterson and it would take me less time to drive to Kenosha for a brat than Xni-Pec for a 7pm weeknight meal.

While I do "treck" to both Xni-Pec and Depot Diner on a regular basis I don't go quite as often as I might if traffic were less of a hurdle.

Enjoy,
Gary

Binko wrote:

leek wrote: I'm not sure it's worth trekking diagonally across Chicago on a regular basis for...

I swear, sometimes it sounds like people talk about Cicero like it's bordering on Iowa or something. It's just a quick shot down 290 (well, a quick shot when 290 isn't a cluster*&*#). 94 > 290 > Cicero exit, you're practically there. 20 minutes from the Loop.

OK, I live near the Fullerton and Armitage exits on 94. We were lucky with traffic on Wed night, no major slowdowns, and it only took us about 30-40 minutes to get there. But you know, I don't want to be driving 30-40 minutes for dinner most of the time, and if traffic were bad, who knows how long it would have taken! Sometimes traffic is backed up from the Dan Ryan practically up to North avenue. The other option? Ogden. Yeah, that's a speedway.

I think Binko's point, which I tend to agree with, is that Cicero "seems" further away than it actually is. My next door neighbor declined to go to Xni Pec the first time I mentioned it to him because of the distance (about 15 minutes from his house); then he went, and raved about it, and now does not think Cicero is so far away.

David Hammond wrote:I think Binko's point, which I tend to agree with, is that Cicero "seems" further away than it actually is.

Possibly, though in my case I know exactly where Cicero is, an hour from my house, minimum, early on a weeknight.