Quirky City, Quirky Ranking

Portland's Chart House has a view of Mount Hood.

In reverse order the top 10 food cities in the USA consist of Charleston, Washington, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and, the number one food city in America, Portland! It's in the Washington Post, so you know it's authoritative.

Portland is closer to his home, but at least the newspaper's owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, didn't make 'em pick Seattle (which is worthy of a top-ten rank, IMHO).

More from WaPo restaurant critic Tom Sietsema:

"You have really excellent examples of Thai, Spanish, even Italian," Sietsema said. "And then there's this quilt of quirk that goes over the city that I was just charmed by. And no one does breakfast as well as Portland."

"I'm getting a lot of heat from Seattle, but it just wasn't their year, and I went there twice," he said. "Right now, I think Seattle would be 11th or 12th."

Addendum: Guide Michelin gives only four restaurants on the West Coast three stars, its highest rating.

Benu and Saison, tasting menu restaurants from chefs Corey Lee and Joshua Skenes, respectively, join The French Laundry and the Restaurant at Meadowood in the lofty three-star category.

All are in the San Francisco Bay Area. Portland? Portland? Hello?