All the news that's fit to dish

The NYT's fallen, and fallen hard, for Portland, aka foodie heaven. Go figure.

This is a golden age of dining and drinking in a city that 15 years ago was about as cutting edge as a tomato in January. Every little neighborhood in this city of funky neighborhoods now seems to be exploding with restaurants, food shops and markets, all benefiting from a critical mass of passion, skill and experience, and all constructed according to the gospel of locally grown ingredients.

And later...

“This is one of the very few places on the West Coast that has been an affordable place to live,” said Andy Ricker, who in 2005 opened Pok Pok, which started under his obsessive eye as a ramshackle Thai takeout shack and now has a hip little dining room as well. “There are a ton of people here who are going at it in sort of an indie rock way, mostly because they can.”

Ah, the indie rock thing in Portland. We're ground zero for that, too, apparently, but that's a whole different story. But both the food and the music scenes (and many other things shaking out in this city) today are clearly being driven by the much hyped "young creative class," which has been flocking here for years, as it starts to influence in very tangible ways what traditionally has seemed to be a very old-guard city.

It's all part of why we love it so much here. But at the same time, you have to wonder what unintended consequences this kind of swooning coverage will end up having on our adopted town.