Susan's Place, Paris, France.

Any American will tell you that one of the hardest things to do when living the expat life in Europe is to find decent Mexican food. Unfortunately, my partner and I get cravings for the 'South of the border' cuisine about 2 or 3 times a week! We had one of those last night and decided to make nachos (see picture). They were definitely not our best, for lack of quality ingredients mostly, but then again, when it comes to nachos, we've had more than our share of disappointments on this side of the Atlantic. When we first arrived in Paris in September 2003, my partner and I began our search for Mexican eateries in Paris with the help of a free monthly magazine called FUSAC (stands for French-USA Contact). And there it was, on one of their glossy pages, a small ad for a Mexican restaurant named Susan's Place, boasting nothing less than the best Chili Con Carne in Europe. I know what you're thinking, Chili Con Carne is not Mexican. Well, it's Tex-Mex. Close enough. One weekend, we decided to give it a try. It was lunchtime, and ours was the only busy table. We started with an order of nachos. Just one to share, because we wanted to save some room for more delicacies. When the plate arrived to the table, imagine our surprise when we discovered we could count the corn chips on it: there were 4. Shouldn't it be called NACHO (singular) when you get less than five chips in one order??!? It was accompanied by Chips and Salsa, or as we called it afterwards, Stales and Ketchup. The rest of the meal was just as bad. Amazingly, the restaurant is still open, though in a different location. And judging on the feedback left by recent customers on various websites (oubouffer.com and others), the cuisine has not improved one bit.