I moved to Portland a little over a year ago after graduating college with a degree in one hand and some unharnessed potential in the other. The years leading up to my relocation were spent initially in Napa, California followed by four years in Malibu, California broken up periodically by time in London, England which cumulatively amounted to six months living abroad.
One thing that held true in all of these places I called home was my intense, if not maniacal, pursuit of happy and delicious food and drink.
From the fresh crab cocktails in the San Francisco Bay Area to the kosher coffee chains of Los Angeles, from the scones in London to the tiniest Moroccan teahouse in the renaissance city of Florence, Italy I've had both the fortune and pleasure of tickling my tasters with the flavours of the world.
It wasn't until I moved to Portland, Oregon however that I found myself in a city where the best food and beverages are not only a passion but an entire lifestyle of the people who call this place home. It's a city with a Happy Hour guide published yearly and whose Top Restaurants range anywhere from fine-dining on the 30th floor of the tallest skyscraper to a humble cart docked in a parking lot and run by the ex-drummer of The Shins.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: no one does food and drink quite like Portland.
No wonder the population has grown by a quarter of a million people in the past decade.
