Best Places In The World To Retire

San Miguel de Allende is known as the gourmet place of Mexico. People from all over Mexico come here for the food and we have all kinds of different foods.

 

For example, we have a lot of different Mexican-style foods. You can also have Italian food, French-Canadian food, Argentinean, etc. I also know a really good Thai place. You can get sushi here as well. Then there are some organic restaurants. If you want a New York or a Montreal deli, that would be my...

San Miguel de Allende is known as the gourmet place of Mexico. People from all over Mexico come here for the food and we have all kinds of different foods.

 

For example, we have a lot of different Mexican-style foods. You can also have Italian food, French-Canadian food, Argentinean, etc. I also know a really good Thai place. You can get sushi here as well. Then there are some organic restaurants. If you want a New York or a Montreal deli, that would be my restaurant. I have the sandwiches that go with the other things I make like “the Ultimate Montreal Rabbi Club Sandwich.” It’s a club sandwich with onions, mushrooms in a reduced sauce, with tons of bacon on top of it, and cheese.

 

In San Miguel you can go to a Chinese-Mexican buffet and pay 70 pesos (around US $4) for a full meal or you can go to a restaurant and pay 85 pesos ($5) for an appetizer. You get that variety that you can play with.

 

I have eaten at the Chinese-Mexican buffet a couple of times. It’s a good deal. The 70 pesos ($4) that you pay for the full meal comes with a Coke! But the clients are not coming to the Chinese-Mexican buffet; they’re coming to my restaurant. The average cost for a meal at my restaurant is about 200 pesos ($11). A filet mignon in a reduced sauce with asparagus and puree potatoes is 255 pesos ($14).

 

You can get a pizza here in San Miguel for as low as 80 pesos and you can get another kind of pizza for 200 pesos ($11). They are the same size but with different toppings and different quality. 

 

Most people now agree that I make the best pizza in town. I have been voted by the critics as one of the most elegant restaurants and with the best-tasting foods. In our first month, we had a little over 400 people come to our restaurant.

 

(Pictured: Mon Bistro Canadien Cuisine in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.)

It is typically more expensive to buy a new car in Portugal. It is very difficult to find a new car in Portugal unless it is a small new car that costs under € 10,000 (about US $ 10,800 or £ 7,370). Most new cars when compared to the UK, will be at a premium of about 25% to 30% and when compared to the US, will be at a premium of about 40% to 50%. 

 

The market for second hand cars hardly existed until about 5 years ago and now there are about...

It is typically more expensive to buy a new car in Portugal. It is very difficult to find a new car in Portugal unless it is a small new car that costs under € 10,000 (about US $ 10,800 or £ 7,370). Most new cars when compared to the UK, will be at a premium of about 25% to 30% and when compared to the US, will be at a premium of about 40% to 50%. 

 

The market for second hand cars hardly existed until about 5 years ago and now there are about three or four specialists but it is still more expensive than buying a second hand car in the US, where you could into Daytona Beach and buy a pickup truck for US $500 (€ 460 or £ 340). You can’t do that in Portugal. A fairly nice condition, second hand car would cost about €5,000 (US $ 5,500 or £ 3,700).  Vehicle taxes in Portugal are astronomical; they are the highest in Europe.

 

I am not really certain why we didn’t have a second hand car market in Portugal until recently but I think it is partly cultural and partly as a result of legislation. Culturally, even though Portugal is not a wealthy nation, it hates to buy things that are second hand. If you offer somebody second hand clothes, for example, they will look at you lop-sided because they consider that pretty much an insult. Until recently, any second hand items of any nature were frowned upon, whereas, if you go to England, for example, second hand sales are all the rage. In Portugal, that was frowned upon. I think that extended to vehicles. Vehicles are seen as a status symbol so people do not like to be seen in second hand cars.

 

The other thing was that the taxation process, in terms of imported vehicles is so onerous. There are such high taxes in terms of imported vehicles that it just didn’t pay to import and to buy an imported, nice second hand car because the price would be too close to brand new cars. Only in the course of the last few years has that appeared to change.  

 

(Fiat Cinquecento in Portugal, pictured.)