I'd say sushi too. We're closer to Asia.
But I fear they'd kill us on the East Coast staples, pizza, dogs, bagels.
PDX has nada in that department.

Jake,

I really should've made kicking my ass a Mercury auction item. I'm sure there'd be plenty of people who'd like to see that. Oh well, there's always next year!

hugs/kisses
Patrick

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/

It's the Right Coast Portland's weekly.

Too bad Tillamook destroyed Bandon's cheese factory. :(

But who needs fancy foods with all that delicious booze? (That new, potent, Octane stuff out of Cottage Grove ain't too shabby, either.)

"Epicurious.com called them "the new Portland, Oregon." for 2009" Yeah. And York is the new New York, New York!

"That's 9 months of amazing outdoor markets."

Twelve, if you skip over to the Hillsdale Farmers' Market. It's open year round!

Sorry, Nick, but the Phoenix isn't "the Right Coast Portland's weekly." It's Boston's weekly (and they stole it from Cambridge). You guys are a branch location. I was under the impression that you had your own alt paper, the Casco Bay something or other, but I must've been mistaken. We've got two, though. Perhaps we could lend you the Willy Week for a while...

Oh, and I'd put Chrissie and Koorosh Zaerpoor up against Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch any time, any place!

Re:
The swarm of those seeking validation for their lifestyle choices.

An astute observation, Jake (no snark intended). That makes two in a week, ma'am or sir. Please continue...

First - how great can a place be for food without a thriving wine industry?!

Second - if you really get right down to it the seafood on the coast is awesome;

* Netarts Bay oysters (which are great in their own right but are also the seed stock for almost EVERY major oyster farm in the WORLD!)

* Clams and Mussels of many kinds that draw people from as far as Japan

* Rockfish of many kinds

* Bayshrimp in such abundance that you can catch them with an open hand

* Tigerspot prawns, elusive and transitory, but tastier than any shrimp anywhere hands down

* Cabazon

* Albacore

* Sturgeon

* Lamprey

* Dungeness crab

* Halibut

* Snapper of many kinds

* Ling cod

And what is great is that we haven't over-fished our shores to death (yet) so unlike the east coast we still have a BOOMING fishing industry. If anyone actually has the figures it would be interesting to compare the fishing industry revenue of the east coast and west coast.

Fourth - Mushrooms are abundant including all those previously mentioned but here is the clincher, Oregon is the only place outside of France, Italy, and Japan* where truffles grow wild. *Different species in Japan.

Fifth - although this isn't exactly an argument for food in Portland per-se, it speaks to the point previously posted about pizza, bagels, etc. The proximity to California allows us the luxury of the freshest California winter produce such as Oranges, Pink Lemons, Zephyr Limes, Passion Fruit, Mangos, I could go on and on. I would take fresh California produce any day over a greasy pizza from New York (unless of course you are talking about escape from New York pizza.)

Sixth - how many restaurants are actually in portland maine, and how many of those are truly great?

Seventh - do you have wheat farms stretching as far as the eye can see?

Eighth - skiing and snowboarding suck on the east coast (totally unfood related but still true).

Finally, Portland boasts the highest number of strip clubs per capita, which is really to say that we have more naked hotties wandering around eating our food (can you imagine nymphs in Loth Lorien? We don't have to because that is Portland).

Oops, did I forget that we are so awesome that we don't have to count ? :)

I see your challenge, and raise you one Portland Phoenix blog post.
http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/abouttown/arch…

-Jeff Inglis, managing editor, Portland Phoenix

I tried to get riled up for this, but East Coast envy is just a really tired topic, you know?
I mean seriously, when was the last time you ever saw someone write about something from the East write a whining diatribe about "being as good as" something on the West Coast (I actually laughed out loud at the thought of someone here doing that. It’s that funny).

We here on the East Coast have just had to accept that the West (i.e. irrelevant) Coast will always need to cling to the nebulous fantasy of not being inferior to the East Coast.
At gets pretty sad at times, like in this case where a city of over 500,000 on the West Coast desperately (and resoundingly unsuccessfully) seeks validation by being “better” than a city of 50,000 on the East Coast.
(historical note: In a delightful coincidence, this example beautifully illustrates the sage wisdom of native Portlander Umfold “Stink-pockets” Johnson, who was fond of saying “It takes ten times as many West Coast people to do something as well as it’s done on the East Coast” Umfold was also fond of storing samples of his wife’s stools in his pockets – hence his nickname. I know many of you on the West Coast are not familiar with Umfold’s teachings, since he lived in (the Real) Portland in the 1790’s, about 60 years before your (Fake) Portland was invented.)

As with any of these grasping attempts at relevancy by the West, our role here is to nod & smile patronizingly. A virtual pat on the head.


PS - The Portland Phoenix is most certainly NOT a "branch" of the Boston Phoenix, having served as (The real) Portland's Arts & Entertainment Authority since 1999 and being named the New England Press Association's "Newspaper of the Year" in 2006.
There WERE 2 Alt-weeklies here for a while, but The Casco Bay Weekly closed in 2002. If done well, I guess there’s no need for 2…….

Marc Shepard
Associate Publisher
Portland Phoenix

Glad to see this is all in good fun. ;) Would be sad to fight just because Portland, OR and Portland, ME share the same name.

OMG you guys are a bunch of "one uppers" get a life, travel the world, appreciate and take each location for what it is...