Portland has arrived -- and just in time too, because New Yorkers are starving.

In a fawning piece on Portland restaurants, the New York Times on Wednesday declared the Rose City a “full-fledged dining destination” (even though it’s “destined to play second string on the West Coast to San Francisco and Seattle,” according to the Times.)

Link: Talk of the Town blog

Wednesday’s piece lists Pok Pok, Paley's Place, Le Pigeon, Clyde Common, Lauro and Vindalho and Wildwood among some of the gastronomical greats Portland has to offer.

Vitaly and Kimberly Paley, who moved to Portland from Manhattan, say in the interview that in 1994 they sold their 500-square-foot apartment to open a restaurant.

(Photo courtesy of OCCI)

“We bought a house with a swimming pool, two cars, and had enough left to open (the) restaurant,” Vitaly Paley said.

And add in for an appetizer, the Food Network in 2007 named Bridgetown the most “Delicious Destination,” beating out Minneapolis and Portland, Maine for the title.

No mention of the city’s consumables would be complete of course without the booze, as the times continuously praises the blooming wine culture, growing out of the Willamette Valley. And the fact that we’re “Beervana,” as Mayor Tom Potter declared, playing host to more microbreweries per capita than any other U.S. city.

Wednesday's read is just the latest in a series of articles by the Times lauding Portland’s status as a semi-underground, yet highly sophisticated Mecca of the trendy classes.

In April, the paper published “36 Hours in Portland,” highlighting the art and music scenes, natural beauty, public transportation in the PDX. It even calls the chic Pearl Stumptown’s answer to SoHo.

Since then, the Times has also extolled our fair city’s tea culture, local chocolate maker Cacao, and the Ace Hotel.

Much of the focus of the Times’ articles is on the Rose City’s sort of individuality, such as the insistence of locally grown products, cheaper-than-most-cities costs of living and the D.I.Y. ethic.

“There are a ton of people here who are going at it (the restaurant biz) in sort of an indie rock way, mostly because they can,” Pok Pok owner Andy Ricker said.

So stay cool Portland, it looks like everyone just wants to chow down on your way up.