Continued from “Paris, France 003”….

Welcome to Indiana, home of the finest Tex-Mex dining on Place de la Bastille! As I always say, when you want authentic Mexican food, head for, um, Indiana?

It was my last day in France, and after visiting Père Lachaise cemetery, I stopped here for lunch. Coming from Houston, which offers (in my opinion) the best Tex-Mex cuisine in the world, it’s fun to see how restaurants in other places prepare and serve something like, say, enchiladas. In Inverness, Scotland, for example, my enchiladas were served in the form of a cinder block. But with a healthy dose of Tabasco sauce (the best/only spice option available), they weren’t entirely unpleasant as general food items.

Indiana Tex-Mex was not busy when I arrived. Taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather, I chose one of the outside tables you see here. And with no place in particular to be, I settled in, ordered a beer and some food, and watched the sun drop through the sky. By the time my second beer was delivered, a large and boisterous demonstration for immigrants’ rights had started to build just out of the picture, to the left.

Despite the crowd of protestors, I felt at peace, alone with my thoughts. Three weeks in France seemed like a long time, but I would gladly have stayed longer. Sitting there in the lengthening shadows with a dangerously empty beer glass, I was sure I’d be back in France very soon. Alas, as of 2009, I still haven’t returned. But I know we’ll will. We must.