Wheaton Calling

Be back in 3 weeks

2012-02-04T02:57:00.001-05:00

I'm heading off on a 3 week vacation to the land of the Hobbits. Be back at the end of February!

Island Hut, I hardly knew you...

2012-01-19T12:56:00.003-05:00

Well, as Good Eatin in Wheaton hinted in a post last week, it appears that Gloria's Island Hut has indeed closed, but with hopes of reopening at some point in the future. It's unfortunate timing after being mentioned (along with Ren's Ramen) as one of the Post's food critic Tom Sietsema's "Tom's Cheap Eats".

Mr. WC has continued his intrepid reporting by getting in touch with Island Hut owner Gloria via email, and she provided this response:

"We apologize for the delay in notifying our customers. A message was supposed to be placed on our website. We had many issues with Greenhill Realty and had no choice but to close our doors.

We are considering reopening at a later date.

Thank you,
Gloria"

It's interesting that their landlord is Greenhill Realty, whose owner was recently featured in a Just Up the Pike post about their attempts to develop property in Wheaton. Based on stories I've read/heard from some of Greenhill's former tenants, they are fairly unforgiving if a business falls on hard times and gets behind in payments. This is certainly their right as a landlord, but I have to wonder about this strategy when many of their properties in Wheaton sit vacant.

Gazette Article about Royal Mile

2012-01-18T08:57:00.003-05:00

I promise that I will be posting about something other than Royal Mile within a few days, but the Gazette website has just posted an article about the status of the pub. Among the more interesting tidbits is that a co-owner of Flanigan's Harp & Fiddle in Bethesda was in discussions in November with Mike Moore about becoming a partner in the restaurant, but that the talks fell through because of the poor financial position of the Royal Mile.

Other than that, there are some nice tributes and memories from people who have visited the Royal Mile over the years.

RM owner looking for partners?

2012-01-17T12:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I was going to break my streak of Royal Mile postings by writing about a great dinner I had at Ren's Ramen on Friday night, but Good Eatin in Wheaton just posted a review of his recent visit there and kinda stole my thunder. That will teach me to procrastinate on posting restaurant reviews! With the cold weather we've been having, I think we're all in a "soupy" kind of a mood.

The Gazette reporter who covers Wheaton got in touch with me over the weekend about a story he's working on about the Royal Mile. I'll post a link to that article once it's online. The comments to Wheaton Patch's article about the Royal Mile have been dominated lately by someone named Charles Garris. Garris makes several mentions in an "unofficial" capacity that the owner Mike Moore may be in the market for some financial partners. He throws out the sum of $100k to buy in as a partner or $1.25 million to purchase outright. He also mentions that the cost of purchasing the restaurant plus the land have ended up being more than the revenue the restaurant is bringing in, resulting in a negative cash flow. I find it odd that a friend of the owner is posting this kind of information online, but hopefully he has Moore's blessing to be doing this.

So, if any of you have a spare $100k laying around, you could be the proud partial owner of a restaurant that is spending more money than it's making! Seriously, though, I'm pulling for something to get worked out here to reopen the restaurant.

Update from Royal Mile Owner

2012-01-12T18:27:00.001-05:00

My significant other (often referred to on my blog as Mr. WC) walked by the Royal Mile late this afternoon and happened to see some people inside the building, even though the lights were off. Being the intrepid investigator that he is, he knocked on the door until someone came over. It was the owner, Michael Moore, who appeared to be in the process of meeting with a contractor.

According to him, the Royal Mile WILL BE reopening, but that a number of serious issues with the building itself are requiring its temporary closure. He mentioned electrical issues being one of the main problems. Mr. Moore did not know when the needed repairs will be completed, so he didn't have an expected date for them to reopen.
Mr. WC mentioned being there on Sunday when all the employees seemed to think the restaurant was going out of business, but Mr. Moore didn't volunteer any additional information to explain this.
Michael Moore also addressed the issue of their website apparently going down. He said that they changed their web address to ".net" rather than ".com". He asked that we share the current website with everyone, and said that he would be posting updates there once he has a better idea of when the repairs will be completed.
While I'm encouraged to hear that he is proceeding with the plans of making repairs and reopening, I can't help but feel for the employees who are without work and pay. While it sounds like the Royal Mile will be reopening, there's certainly no guarantee that the familiar faces we associate with it will be there when that happens.

Royal Mile Update

2012-01-09T18:25:00.002-05:00

***Wednesday update: As of last night, it looks like the sign about repairs has been removed and there was no sign of activity inside the restaurant. One other thing...While I'm happy to provide a venue on this blog for people to post their thoughts and feelings about the Royal Mile, I don't want the comments to degrade into personal insults against the owner. I've been on the verge of deleting a comment or two that I think cross the line, so let's tone down the personal insults a little bit. Keep it classy, Wheaton!

***Tuesday update: A short article on Patch notes that an email from the owner says that they are in a "restructuring phase". Other than quoting another local resident who was also told of their closing on Sunday, there are no new updates. An anonymous commenter to my earlier post alleges serious payroll/money problems at the restaurant and appears to place the blame squarely on the owner. I'd be happy to talk with any employees who want to tell their side of things. As other commenters have noted, there are probably a number of people willing and able to help keep the place open, but if the place has been consistently losing money for a long period of time, there may not be much any of us can do other than support the restaurant as patrons if it does reopen.

A sign posted in the window of Royal Mile says that is closed today and tomorrow for repairs. Hopefully this means that the owner is trying to work out whatever issues are going on. Still, things sounded pretty final last night when I was there, so we'll have to wait and see if they reopen on Wednesday. Fingers crossed!

A Sad Loss for Wheaton's Dining Scene

2012-01-09T08:13:00.002-05:00

For all of the love I give to the wide variety of restaurants here in Wheaton, the Royal Mile Pub has been the one I go to the most often. Almost every weekend, Mr. WC and I have gone there to enjoy the food, the beer, and most importantly, the people and the atmosphere. While it was never a good place to eat if you were in a hurry, the relaxed vibe and slower pace of the Royal Mile was often exactly what I needed on a Friday night after a hectic work week. There was always a wide variety of people dining there - older couples who had been going there since it opened, families with kids, and friends out for beers. I always felt like part of a community when I was there. While I didn't go there quite often enough to be a "regular", the service was always friendly, with the waiters all becoming familiar faces to me after several years of heading there every weekend.

As I posted last night, it all appears to be coming to an end. From what I was told by the waiters, either last night or some day early this week will most likely be the Royal Mile's last day in business. While one waiter expressed hope that some other arrangement would come through to keep them open, it didn't sound good. No one I spoke with had a great explanation behind the closing, but financial issues seem a likely cause. Last night, the atmosphere was a mixture of celebration and sadness. I saw one waitress shedding a few tears after getting hugged by a regular. All the employees seemed to be in a state of shock that the Royal Mile was actually closing after all these years. The gentleman who occassionally shows up there with bagpipes was outside playing for most of the evening, giving the pub a fitting Scottish farewell.

After 30 years of business in Wheaton, it's hard to believe the Royal Mile will be closing.

Stop by Royal Mile tonite...could be your last chance

2012-01-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting at the Royal Mile posting from my iPhone to let you know that tonite may be your last to enjoy their scotch, beer, and burgers. I'm hearing from the waitstaff that this could be their last day in business. The menu has been whittled down to a hand-written list but they still have burgers, beer, scotch and half price wine tonite. I'll still be here a while drowning my sorrows so come on down...

Zombie Walk will soon devastate Silver Spring

2011-10-13T11:00:00.000-04:00

Much like I am trying to revive this near corpse of a blog, the undead will rise and wreak havoc in Silver Spring on Saturday, October 22nd at 8pm.
As some of you may know, I am a huge halloween and zombie fan. And I will definitely be participating in this year's zombie walk in Silver Spring...until we pull off a Dawn of the Dead-like takeover of Westfield Wheaton some year.

I always have a great time at this event, and for the second year in a row, friends will be visiting from out of town just so they can also participate. For anyone who is interested, check out the official website. There is also a sweet poster being issued for this year's walk. Our group is attempting to come up a clever zombie costume theme this year, so if anyone has some suggestions (i.e. zombie pedestrians who were struck by cars trying to reach the new Costco???) send them on over.

Congrats, Ren's!

2011-10-12T20:37:00.001-04:00

Post food writer Tom Sietsema released his 2011 Fall Dining Guide today, and Ren's Ramen has the honor of being listed as a recommendation! The only other MoCo restaurants to get a mention are La Canela in Rockville and Tavira in Chevy Chase.
I have been meaning to try Ren's for a while now, and this mention was just the nudge that I needed to check it out.

Me and Mr. WC shared an order of gyoza to start the meal. My initial impression was they were sauteed a little too long in the skillet - instead of being brown from the pan-frying, they were bordering on a little bit charred. Still, the filling was very moist (and hot!) and I didn't really get a burned taste when I was eating them, so I give the gyoza a thumbs up.

For our meals, we both ordered the ramen with miso broth. It comes with a thin slice of roast pork, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, scallions, and noodles of course. We also both added pork belly onto our soups, which added two pieces of tasty fatty pork to the bowl and Mr. WC added an egg as well. The broth is cloudy, fatty, and thick. I've never had 'real' ramen before, but I thought the broth was great and the noodles themselves were obviously fresh, which a nice texture to them - they had body without being too chewy. Our meal, with the gyoza, pork belly, and egg added on came to about $32. So, it's not a bargain, but it certainly left us both very full. There was a nice crowd of people already in there when we came in, and I'm sure the crowd will only get bigger once more people read the Dining Guide.

Gyoza Appetizer

Two bowls of miso ramen w/pork belly

Reviews of some old favorites

2011-09-06T21:28:00.001-04:00

After too long of a hiatus from blogging, I was inspired by Good Eatin's recent post to do my own updated reviews of some favorite restaurants here in Wheaton that I have visited recently...

New Kam Fong
Just went there for dinner tonite. Went in planning to get something 'light', but ended up getting two dishes that added up to a delicious shellfish feast - we ordered a daily special of razor clams in black bean sauce and also got the twin lobsters with ground pork. It has been a long time since we've been to NKF, but throughout our meal, we kept asking ourselves why the hell we stayed away for so long! The food was delicious (especially the lobster), service was great, and they suprised us with a yummy pastry dessert at the end of our meal. Here are some pictures:

Razor Clams

Twin lobsters (with discarded clamshells in the foreground)

Nava Thai
We went there for dinner on a Thursday and were suprisingly impressed by the musician they had playing - named "Chai T". He was playing excellent covers of pink floyd, eagles, etc., throughout our meal. I tried the stir fried eggplant for the first time and was happy with all the ginger and basil in it. Mr. WC ordered his usual floating market noodle soup (which he claims is one of the hottest dishes he has ever had...in a good way). Unfortunately, the soup completely lacked any heat at all and was fairly bland. Hopefully the cook was just having an off night, because that's one of the dishes that normally gets rave reviews for Nava.

Rock Creek Company
I had off work last Friday and stopped in to get takeout for lunch. I REALLY wish they kept this place open for lunch on the weekends - no one else in Wheaton offers the sort of light, gourmet, french-inspired salads and sandwiches that they have. When I stopped in, they had an asparagus and mushroom quiche on a bed of greens as their lunch special, which I immediatley jumped on and ordered. It wasn't exactly "light" with all the egg and cheesy goodness going on, but it was tasty. They also suckered me into buying one of the homemade blueberry muffins they also had in their display case - it was light and crumbly (almost like a scone) and dusted with granulated sugar. Yum! If you're ever around for lunch on a weekday, I highly suggest you check them out. They offer a nice break from the often heavy food options here in Wheaton.

Royal Mile
They still have what I think is THE BEST burger, and nothing says the weekend to me like relaxing there with my burger and beer on a Friday night. Mr. WC consistently orders the fish and chips and is always happy with that too. I'm a little concerned about RM getting enough business with Limerick Pub open across the street, so keep giving them a little love, people!

Moby Dick
Even though their dining room isn't anything special, I still always feel like I've walked into a little oasis when I eat there. The rice paper over the windows and the mellow music playing do a good job at making you forget the urban jungle right outside the front door. We went here on Labor Day and they were still offering their lunch specials, so I ordered their bento box B. It comes with miso soup, a salad (yes, Good Eatin, I love that peanut dressing too!), shrimp and veggie tempura with dipping sauce, rice, edamame, and a california roll. All for $10! On top of that, the family that owns the restaurant is always very nice and friendly.

Marchone's
In my quest to eat healther (not that you could tell from the list of restaurants above!), it's been a while since I visited Marchone's. Still, when we stopped in the other day to pick up supplies for dinner (pasta sauce, olive oil and some of their awesome spicy sausage), Mr. Leo still greeted us like old friends. I always leave there with a smile on my face thanks to him.

Water main break on Georgia Avenue affecting southbound traffic

2011-07-20T15:53:00.000-04:00

Per an article on the Gazette's website, a water main break on Georgia Avenue has caused the southbound lanes to be closed between Randolph Road and Henderson Avenue. The article says that the lanes should be reopened by this evening, but I wouldn't be surprised if this still impacts traffic for rush hour. Still, it's better than the northbound lanes being closed heading into evening rush hour.

The article also states that water service to businesses in the area was cut but residential customers still have water. The only business I'm familiar with along this stretch of Georgia is H-Mart, so I made a phone call over to them and they confirmed that they are open.

New food blog to feature Wheaton eats!

2011-07-19T12:21:00.000-04:00

I know I've been MIA for a while (summer has been busy!), but apparently there's a new blog in town, Hungry Like the Bear. Since I like both bears and food, I'm looking forward this new addition to the Wheaton food scene. I will also try to get back into the swing of things with posting more frequently!

Downtown Wheaton Summer TGIF Series Announced

2011-06-06T11:33:00.000-04:00

The Wheaton TGIF summer series has been announced for this year, with the first event happening this Friday. I was expecting a fairly scaled back set of events due to all the budget cuts, but the lineup actually looks better than usual. Here's a link to list of events, which I've also copied in below. A mix of concerts and movies is planned. The movies they'll be showing are skewed more towards families with kids (not a bad thing), but I think they picked a good selection. I'm just wondering if the Karate Kid will be the remake or the original. It would be much cooler if it was the original, but I'm guessing it's going to be new version. Between the movies and the concerts, there will be something going on every Friday starting this week through September 9th. Pretty impressive!

June 10—Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band (Afrobeat)
June 17—Sin Miedo (Salsa)
June 24—Janine Wilson (Roots Rock)
July 1—The Nighthawks (Blues)
July 8—Despicable Me
July 15—Margot MacDonald (Rock/Pop)
July 22—The Karate Kid
July 29—Project Natale (Jazz)
August 5—Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
August 12—Chelsey Green & The Green Project
August 19—Toy Story 3
August 26—Deborah Bond (Soul/Funk)
September 2—Finding Nemo
September 9—The Lion King

Bike to Work Day Tomorrow!

2011-05-19T13:27:00.001-04:00

I'll follow up with my Taste of Wheaton review in another day or two, but I wanted to remind everyone that Bike to Work Day is tomorrow. It looks like the weather should cooperate, so get out on your bikes and get some exercise! I've been biking in to my office near Farragut West almost once a week, and I'm using a different route now than the one I described last year.

Using the biking route directions on google maps, I now mosty take 14th street in and do kind of a hodgepodge of streets on my way back to Wheaton. Here is a link to the route I roughly use and here is my route back home.

I've been very happy with the quality of the biking directions you can get from google maps, so I recommend giving it a try.

***Update: It was a beautiful morning to bike in, and it definitely seemed like more cyclists than usual on the roads. The latest I've heard is that 11,000 people are participating in Bike to Work Day today (and I think that's just the number that registered with WABA). So, congrats to any of you that biked in today, and for all of you drivers, keep an eye out for increased number of cyclists on the roads today.

H&M Coming to Mall

2011-04-29T08:58:00.000-04:00

Wheaton Patch reported this morning that H&M will be opening a store at the mall. It sounds like it's going to be a two-story store because the article mentions it taking over some retail spacse on the first and second floors. Unfortunately, the Guess store will be going to make way for this, which is unfortunate because I thought that was one of the better non-departure store retailers in the mall. Still, I think this is good shopping news (not so good for my wallet, probably).

Gazette Article Brings Clarity to Costco Issue

2011-04-27T09:20:00.000-04:00

The Gazette posted an article on its website this morning that I think brings some clarity to the issue of the $4 million subsidy to Costco. It explains the county fund that this money would be coming from and also points out the amount of county funds that Westfield has received over the past few years for projects on their property.

The only item that I find surprising/confusing is that Ike Leggett was able to sign an agreement between the county and Westfield agreeing to give them $4 million prior to the county council approving any such funding. I readily admit that I'm not an expert on how these things work in the county, so maybe this isn't so unusual. Was there a disclaimer in the agreement saying that it was contigent on the council approving the funds?

I certainly don't have a problem with Wheaton receiving alot of the money from the county's Economic Development Fund, but I would prefer that this money goes towards projects that encourage use of public transit and create a more walkable downtown.

County Council Attempting to Block Costco Subsidy

2011-04-20T09:48:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a reader tip, I came across an Examiner article (also referenced by Patch and TBD) reporting that several members of the county council are attempting to block the $4 million subsidy that Ike Leggett has proposed giving Costco to encourage them to open a store in Wheaton. All along, this subsidy hasn't sat well with me. First of all, Costco announced its plan to open a store in Wheaton in a press release that listed a number of other new store locations around the country. I always wondered if the other communities threw that kind of money at Costco to get them to come or if Costco just decided to go there based purely on the potential money they would be making.

If the county is going to give my money to a company or developer to encourage them to do a project here in Wheaton, I want that money to go to projects that encourage smart growth, the use of public transit, and a better environment for pedestrians. The Costco project does none of these things. I understand that Costco will bring in more retail job positions to Wheaton and will certainly help spur more business at the mall, but I don't think it's the kind of project that warrants getting taxpayer money to make it happen. As Marc Elrich was quoted as saying in the article, "Westfield Mall has gazillions of dollars...They're going to make a freaking fortune on Costco". Well said. This project is going to make plenty of money on its own merits. It doesn't need a handout from taxpayers to 'balance the numbers' and make it happen.

Other postings I've done on Costco can be found here.

Zombie Walk - Lots of Advance Notice!

2011-04-15T13:44:00.001-04:00

Thayer Avenue has announced the date for this year's Silver Spring Zombie Walk as Saturday, October 22nd. With this much advanced notice, you have no excuse not to make it!

Myth or Reality - 1969 Zeppelin show in Wheaton

2011-04-15T09:45:00.001-04:00

Some of you may have heard of a supposed Led Zeppelin show in Wheaton back in 1969 at the Rec Center on Georgia Ave. There is much debate about whether or not this show actually happened (of course, I'd like to believe that it did). WTOP has an article bringing up this debate again now that a documentary by Jeff Krulick is in the works about this mythical show. The Post had an article about this show back in 2009, which is the first I remember hearing about it, and there is a mention of it on Led Zeppelin's website. A little while after this initial Post article, there was a reunion of people who claim to have attended the concert, which the Post and the Gazette covered.

Based on a Wikipedia entry about the Rec Center, I found out that the center also hosted concerts by some pretty kick ass bands (Alice Cooper, Iggy and the Stooges) as well as some not-so-kick ass bands (Bob Seger, Rod Stewart). I would have loved to see the Stooges back in the day, and I had to smile at the mention in the Post article about Sharon Ellis, the former director of the center, recalling how she had to ask Iggy Pop to stop smearing peanut butter on his chest during their show. They don't make bands like that anymore.

Free Yoga This Weekend

2011-04-14T13:44:00.001-04:00

Willow Street Yoga will be offering free classes this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If you've never tried yoga before, or if you're just curious to check out their studios, this is a great opportunity. They have studio locations in Silver Spring and Takoma Park (both an easy walk from the metro). I've taken classes at Willow Street for 6 years now, and they have a really wonderful group of instructors there.

An Underground Dining-Inspired Meal

2011-03-14T21:00:00.001-04:00

The other weekend, Mr. WC and I were in the mood to make a 'project' dinner for ourselves on Sunday. We had found a local underground dining website, Dining Under the Table, thanks to a posting on Thayer Avenue, and we were inspired by a posting about some Maine shrimp ravioli they made for one of their meals. So, using that for our inspiration, we set about making our homemade shrimp and lobster ravioli. This isn't exactly Wheaton-related (it's closer to a Crash in the Kitchen post), but we did get alot of our ingredients from local stores, so I think this counts!

The first step was to make our own seafood stock. To get really good stock from shellfish, you need the heads, which have alot of tasty fat in them. While shrimp with heads on may be hard to find at some grocery stores, H-Mart always has them. So, we picked up some raw shrimp from H-Mart plus a lobster for good measure.

Raw Shrimp w/ Heads

Lobster post-steaming

We shelled the raw shrimp, keeping the heads and shells, and cooked the lobster (I had to leave the room for that part). We then removed the meat and retained the shells and heads. We threw all of the heads and shells, plus some veggies and water, in a pot that we simmered for most of the day.

Our house smelled like seafood for days after making the stock!

Separately, we mixed the cooked shrimp and lobster meat with some shallots, basil, grated parmesean, and ricotta cheese. Then, we put the mixture into a food processor, which produced a nice paste for our ravioli filling.

While the stock was going, we made the ravioli dough, which has to rest in the refrigerator for a few hours before rolling it out. Our dough recipe comes from the cookbook 'Urban Italian' by Andrew Carmellini (I highly recommend the book, and it's on sale at Amazon for $14!). It calls for type '00' flour, and the only place around here that sells it is Marchone's, so I stopped there to buy a few bags. Eventually, we rolled out the dough, and using a ravioli mold, started to fill our ravioli with the shrimp and lobster filling. We made a whopping 80 ravioli!

We put the ravioli we weren't going to eat into the freezer for a future meal, then cooked our fresh ravioli for dinner. For the sauce, we sauteed shallots, garlic, red pepper and tomato paste, then added some of the seafood stock (the rest went in the freezer) and reduced it all down. The final step was to add a little half and half for creaminess plus a cornstarch-water mixture to thicken it (we copied the sauce on the 'Dining Under the Table' website). We topped the ravioli with shredded basil for the finishing touch. It was fantastic!

Thanks to Dining Under the Table for the inspiration for our delicious meal! If I promise not to compete with you for business, will you please keep posting info on the wonderful recipes you're coming up with??

p.s. It was revealed last week that local blog SoCo Eats is part of Dining Under the Table. Based on how our meal inspired by their website turned out, I predict great things for them!

WETA show on Monday night to feature Wheaton

2011-03-13T21:34:00.000-04:00

This Monday night, March 14, at 8pm, WETA will be debuting a new show called 'The WETA Guide to Mongtomery County'. I got an email from a promotional person with WETA about it, and apparently this first show will include features on Wheaton's "culinary diversity", a tour of Brookside Gardens, and a visit to Antique Row in Kensington. I'll be interested to see what restaurants they feature on the show.

Images from WETA

Taste of Wheaton Set for May 15th

2011-03-10T13:10:00.001-05:00

Mark your calendar! This year's Taste of Wheaton has been scheduled for Sunday, May 15th, and applications are being sent out to start pulling together the restaurants that will have stands. So, start asking your favorite local restaurants if plan to participate. If they're interested, they should contact the events manager listed on the page that's still up from last year. You can also read about the tasty food I had last year at the Taste of Wheaton here.

Here's a list of the restaurants that partcipated in last year's festival:
Ledo Pizza
Ming Tree
Starbucks
El Boqueron
Saigonese
Umberto's
Dunkin Donuts
Pollo Sabroso
Los Cobanos
IHOP
Global Cafe African Grill
Noble Romans Playland
Hollywood East
Marchones
Moby Dick

Who's missing from this list that you'd like see this year?

Here's my wish list:
Limerick Pub
Royal Mile (fish and chips showdown!)
Ruan Thai
Nava Thai (pad thai showdown!)
Paul Kee
Full Kee
Sergio's
Irene's Pupusas
Woomi Garden

Safeway Demolition Update

2011-03-09T13:00:00.002-05:00

The Gazette has posted an update on the anticipated schedule for demolition to start on Safeway. It sounds like they want to get all of their building permits approved before they start demolition, and right now it's looking like those will come through in April. So, we're looking at an April or May start for demolition. So much for my guess of March 7th!

Limerick Pub Review

2011-03-08T20:55:00.000-05:00

Apologies for my lack of posting lately. Life has been busy! I'm not going to post a clever limerick about it like Good Eatin' did, but I will share my review of our dinner there tonite.

We got there around 7pm and the place was packed. There were only a handful of tables open and all of the waitstaff was visibly flustered (overwhelmed?) with the turnout. My initial impression was that the decor was nice, but it lacks the coziness of the Royal Mile. On the other hand, the bar (toally packed when we were there) certainly has a nice amount of space for both sitting at the bar and standing around behind it. The flat screen TVs were all tuned to 'footie' and there wasn't any music playing, which made the place seem strangely quiet, considering how many people were in there. Still, a band was in the process of slooooowly setting up when we got there. Even when we finished dinner and left, there was no sign of them starting anytime soon, though.

Now, on to our meal! Mr. WC and I decided to have our usual Royal Mile dishes to compare to those at Limerick - a burger with swiss cheese and mushrooms for me and fish and chips for Mr. WC. My burger was respectable - the burger had a nice 'charbroiled' taste to it and the bun was toasted. However, I give Royal Mile the win on this one - their burger is thicker, juicier, and just more tasty in general. Still, this was a decent burger, especially for their second night open. We both had some issues with the fries that came with our meals, though. They were so dark that they almost looked burned, yet we found them soggy without any crispness at all when we started eating them. They did seem to be fresh cut, so that's good, but the sogginess made these a no-go for me. The fish and chips came out with a mountain of large, battered chunks of fish. Mr. WC deemed these the equal of the Royal Mile - the fish was very fresh tasting, and the pieces held together well once you started eating them while the RM version kind of falls to pieces after the first bite. The sogginess of a few pieces is probably the only thing that prevented Limerick's version of the dish to not surpass the Royal Mile's.

In general, the service was very friendly, even though there were issues caused by how understaffed they were. That's totally forgiveable, though, on their second night of business. The list of beers on tap was decent, and they also had a good selection of bottled beer (maybe a few less than Royal Mile) plus all sorts of specialty Irish options like half and half. The entree prices were maybe a little higher than Royal Mile, but not by much. Royal Mile will be our first choice for pub food in the future, but Limerick Pub is a good backup option and it's worth considering if all you want to do is stand or sit at the bar with a beer. Just for comparison, we walked by the Royal Mile after dinner and it looked like there was only one table with 2 people seated in the whole place (yikes!).

So, by all means, check out and patronize Limerick, but keep on supporting the Royal Mile too.

Wheaton in the Blogosphere

2011-02-11T13:18:00.000-05:00

There have been some interesting Wheaton-related blog posts lately that are definitely worth checking out. A few weeks ago, the excellent Greater Greater Washington blog recently featured an entry from a Wheaton resident reviewing the new Leesborugh townhouse development. It got a pretty good review, and it's inspired me to wander through there the next time I'm walking from my house to Wheaton Regional Park.

Just Up The Pike also posts a great summary and analysis of the census news recently released showing that Montgomery County is now a majority-minority county for the first time (kind of, as JUTP points out). There was actually alot of press about that news release. For all of us here in Wheaton, this level of diversity is something that we see every day. Personally, I'm proud that our county has reached this level of diversity while still having a top notch public school system and a generally high standard of living for its residents.

Another Wheaton mention worth sharing is a recent post by Rollin Stanley, who is the director of the MoCo Planning Department. He provides a good overview of recent development happening in Wheaton, but also starts a discussion about how Viers Mill Rd through Wheaton can be improved. I'll tell you one thing that won't be improving the Viers Mill Rd 'experience'...B.F. Saul's development plans for the triangle area between Georgia and Viers Mill! More on that another day...

There are also some new restaurants coming to Wheaton. According to the Washington City Paper and Eatin in Wheaton, Ren's Ramen will be moving into one of the storefronts in the strip where Ruan Thai is located. Apparently they're aiming for an early spring opening, but based on how things seem to go with restaurants opening in MoCo, I guess we'll have to see. I'm just hoping that they open while the weather is still cool and cravings for awesome noodle soup are high! EIW and the Gazette also mention a new organic burger joint that is coming to Westfield Mall, Elevation Burger. The burger at the Royal Mile has been my top favorite for a while now (medium well with swiss cheese and mushrooms), but I'll be looking forward to trying out the burgers at Elevation. This is in addition to the Panera that is also planning an opening at the mall. Even though I'm not crazy about the Costco going in at Westfield (especially not crazy about the $4m they got from MoCo), I'm not going to pretend that I won't enjoy the extra businesses that seem to be opening at the mall because of it.

Safeway Demolition Starting Soon?

2011-02-10T19:09:00.000-05:00

Sorry to have been in hibernation for a while! While walking around last weekend, I noticed a backhoe and a hole in the ground next to Safeway along Reedie Drive. It looked like there were digging up the incoming gas line. I'm guessing that they're cutting off all the existing services to the building so that demolition can safely start. I may need to start a pool to guess when the first real demolition gets started. I'm going to pick March 7th, a little less than 4 weeks away. What's your guess?

Water Main Break at Prichard Road

2011-01-22T12:03:00.002-05:00

No water this morning? According to the WSSC, there's a water main break on Prichard Road that they're working to repair. They estimate an outage of 5-6 hours, so water *should* be available around dinnertime tonite.

Still parking at Zombie Safeway?

2011-01-19T21:50:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lag in posting lately. I've had another stretch of 12-14 hour days at my job, which leaves me with very little energy left to post. But, with two deadlines out of the way this week, things are looking up for my schedule!

So, word on the street is that within the next day or two, the Zombie Safeway parking lot will be chained off and any cars parked there will be towed. If you've been using that lot to park in, I recommend finding an alternate parking location.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, there have been a few Wheaton metro station mentions in the news lately. The first comes from the announcement that WMATA is considering selling naming rights to its stations to raise income. According to a blurb on WAMU, one of the funny naming opportunities people came up was 'Cream of Wheaton' station. I like it! Also, an amusing Washington Post article suggests that the strange whale-like groans and moans that metro's escalators make could actually be a modern jazz soundtrack to our daily commutes. At the end of the article, the writer advises the true 'elevator jazz' connoiseur to check Wheaton's escalators, which give you a ride of '2 minutes and 44 seconds'. The article also has a link to a contest they're holding for people to remix audio tracks of escalator noise into audio tracks. I'm looking forward to checking them out. It certainly gives me something to think about as I make my daily commute.

New Year's Resolution for WC - Yoga!

2011-01-04T10:22:00.000-05:00

Happy new year, Wheaton! Ohhmmmmmm....After a year-long hiatus, I've decided that starting this year, I'll get back into practicing yoga. I've signed up for a class at Willow Street Yoga, located both in Silver Spring and Takoma Park (both metro accessible). I'm a big fan of Willow Street, and I've taken classes there off and on since I moved to Silver Spring in 2005.

For any wanna-be yogis out there, Willow Street is offering free classes all this week at both of their locations. I went to one free class last night and I'm hitting another today after work. I also saw that Unity Woods is offering free classes this week. For you Wheatonites who want to stay local, Wheaton Patch reported that a yoga class is being offered at Arcola elementary on Monday nights.

I'm catching up on some things after being out of town for the holidays, but look for an upcoming post on Costco's application for a special exemption that would allow them build an 8-pump gas station. Yep, after the public outcry against the zoning text amendment (which ultimately was rejected by the county council), it's time for round 2 on this issue. Wheaton Patch posted a short blurb on it this morning. It's a good thing I'm heading back to the yoga studio, because I'm going to need those deep breathing exerecises with this issue!

Little Bits = Tasty Holiday Treats

2010-12-17T10:23:00.000-05:00

Since it's that time of year for baking holiday treats, I wanted to put in a plug for the Little Bits Shop on Triangle Lane. Even if you're not a serious baker, this place is pretty impressive. On my last visit, I was amazed by the huge spectrum of food colorings they have (any color you want!), the variety of cookie cutters, and lots of cute holiday treat accessories like cupcake wrappers and decorative candy toppers.

I'm having a cookie-making party this weekend, so I'm going to stop by there either today or tomorrow to pick up some supplies.

Check out the Little Bits website for their address and hours. My only wish is that they would have extended hours around the holiday season, since it's a little tough for me to make it there after work before they close.

Washington City Paper article on Wheaton Redevelopment

2010-12-09T21:56:00.001-05:00

I was surprised to see an article on Washington City Paper's website today about the Wheaton Redevelopment project being headed up by B.F. Saul. I wouldn't say there was any earth-shattering revelations in it, but I was disappointed to read that there really aren't any provisions to support existing small businesses in our neighborhood once the redevelopment is under way. While I understand that a private developer isn't obligated to provide assistance to existing small businesses affected by their project, I am disappointed that the county has not assumed more of a leadership role in this.

So, what's up, Montgomery County? Where's your leadership in this project? A major part of the feedback during the community meeting the other week was directly related to maintaining the small business community that makes Wheaton unique. How are any of those concerns going to be addressed if B.F. Saul doesn't plan on doing anything about it? The county needs to step up now and make sure a framework is in place for maintaining the uniqueness of our neighborhood amidst the redevelopment process. Don't get me wrong, the development is Silver Spring is a success in many ways. But other than the restoration of the AFI, the rest of the redeveloped area of Silver Spring along Ellsworth (edited 12-14-10) is a pretty generic place that could have been plopped down in just about any town in America. I think Wheaton will be worse in the long run if we lose the unique businesses that define our community.

Oh, and I was offended about article writer's jab about restaurants here needing to hire English speaking waiters to attempt to lure 'gringos' into their businesses. I have eaten at many ethnic restaurants in Wheaton and have never had the slightest problem communicating with the waiters in English. Also, while I know that Wheaton has its share of crime, I've never heard about the prostitution rings that the writer claims some restaurants are using to boost their income. Geez.

I will also put a plug in for Sergio's, which was featured pretty prominently in the article. They're serving my favorite hispanic food in Wheaton right now, and I have been surprised at how empty it always seems to be. Check it out sometime!

Safeway's New Year Resolution - Demolition!

2010-12-01T09:49:00.000-05:00

The Gazette has reported that demolition of the existing Safeway building will start in January or February. Hurray! The same article also reports the anticipated opening of the new Safeway happening in mid-2012. For a project of this size, a year and a half for demo and construction seems pretty quick, but if they can stick to that schedule, I'll be thrilled.

B.F. Saul posts summary of community feedback

2010-11-29T13:46:00.000-05:00

B.F. Saul's website has posted a summary (PDF) of the feedback they heard from the community meeting held on November 17th.

It generally seems like a fairly detailed list, but I noticed they did gloss over a few points that people were trying to make. Just from the groups I was in, I noticed that their summary doesn't list some of the requests to improve accessibility of sidewalks (i.e. avoid having light poles, parking meters, etc. become obstacles in the sidewalk). They also don't really address the concerns that Chip Py (passionately!) spoke about regarding the rights of people in the town square to assemble, protest, take pictures, etc., without interference from security guards (i.e. the kind of issues that have been popping up in Silver Spring).

I was hoping that they would just scan in the sheets of paper used to write down everyone's suggestions rather than type up a summary. Since they have decided to go with a summary, they should have a process in place for people to comment on B.F. Saul's version of the community feedback. If you do feel that they have omitted or misrepresented something you heard at the meeting, I would recommend using their 'Contact Us' link on the website to voice your concerns.

An Easy, Tasty Dinner from H-Mart

2010-11-28T18:45:00.000-05:00

I was out and about in MoCo today taking care of some holiday shopping and when I headed home in the late afternoon, I started to brainstorm some easy dinner options. After eating waaaay too much Thanksgiving food this weekend, I was in the mood for something different. I decided to shop for dinner at H-Mart. When I had a cookout at my house this summer, my boss, who is Korean, brought over some bulgogi from H-Mart that we threw on the grill. It was awesome! So, I decided to pick up some bulgogi today to make for dinner.

For those of you not familiar with bulgogi, it's very thinly sliced beef that is marinated in garlic, onion, scallions, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. To find it in H-Mart, head to the left once you enter the store (towards the freezer section), and you'll see a refrigerated wall case with a 'Korean BBQ' sign hanging from the ceiling. There are lots of plastic containers with all sorts of prepared foods. I found the bulgogi in an open freezer case across the aisle from the wall case. It was labelled 'Marinated Thin Slices of Beef Rib Eye' and was selling for $3.99/lb, which is pretty damn cheap considering that Woomi Garden charges over $20 for it.

I also picked up a few sides from the refrigerated case to have with it - stir fried black beans and seaweed.

When I got home, I started a pot of rice and chopped up some onion and a beautiful bell pepper that I got at H-Mart to saute with the meat (not necessary for bulgogi, but I wanted some veggies). I added some sesame oil to a skillet, turned the burner up to high, then threw in the meat and veggies. I sauteed them until the liquid evaporated and things started to brown.

Once the food in the skillet was done, I served it up with some rice and the sides I picked up (which I just served cold from the containers). After about 15 minutes worth of work, I had an awesome dinner and enough leftovers for two lunches at work this week (my coworkers will be so jealous!).

Happy Turkey Day, Wheaton!

2010-11-24T10:46:00.000-05:00

I hope all of you out there have a wonderful Thanksgiving and safe travels if you're heading out of town. I'm on up my way up to Pennsylvania to spend the weekend with family. And for any of you still working on your menus, here is a link to a good 'ol fashioned stuffing recipe from the Joy of Cooking that I really like.

Recap of B.F. Saul Meeting

2010-11-17T22:11:00.000-05:00

I just got back from the B.F. Saul meeting for community input on the Wheaton redevelopment project. Overall, I came away from it with a good impression of both the redevelopment team and the Wheaton residents who participated in the meeting. There was a great turnout - I would estimate about 125 people (but I reserve the right to be completely wrong on that). After an initial intro, which included much patting on the back by county people and WMATA reps, the B.F. Saul team took the stage to give a brief presentation about their plans for public input on the process and they gave a recap of what past redevelopment meetings in Wheaton have shown residents are looking for. I had to laugh at the chart they showed for what community groups they are getting input from. The list included several local blogs, including Just Up the Pike, Good Eatin in Wheaton, and the Talk of Wheaton, but NO mention of Wheaton Calling. Where's the love, B.F. Saul???

***Sidenote: Mr. WC just reminded me that perhaps this omission was due to some not-so-kind words I had about the portfolio of work shown on B.F. Saul's website. Fair enough!***

Anyways, after the initial intro, the audience broke into smaller groups at 8 different tables, which were centered around different themes for the revelopment: Desired Land Uses and Small Business Impact, Streets & Sidewalks, Town Square & Open Space, and Overall Vision for Wheaton's New Downtown. Each table had an architect (from Torti Galls) or developer rep(from B.F. Saul) acting as a facilitator and taking down suggestions from the residents on each topic. After two 30-minute sessions, the development team pulled together common themes that they had heard and presented them to the group. I was nicely surprised at how cohesive all of us residents were in what we asked for. I came into this expecting much more of a strong NIMBY presence, but instead I found that people were passionately dedicated to preserving Wheaton's diversity and creating a lively, diverse town center that welcomes all residents and visitors to Wheaton. The facilitators were also patient, taking down pretty much every suggestion and comment, even if they got a little wacky (my table jokingly asked for jugglers, to which the facilatator replies, "Okay! We're putting jugglers on the list!").

The next steps in the process include B.F. Saul working out a deal on the land in question with the county and WMATA. Once that is resolved, the team will work on putting together a concept plan of the project and will present it for further input from the community in March or April. If you go to the project map on the team's website, the areas in red are the areas that B.F. Saul is currently working on purchasing from the county and WMATA.

Two members of the architectural team summarizing the input they heard from residents

Here is an abridged summary of the input they heard from residents at the meeting (apparently scans of all the notes from the meeting will be posted to their website):

Desired Land Uses and Small Business Impact
-Avoid chain restaurants
-Provide retailers that benefit the community, i.e. a hardware store or pet shop
-Keep parking on the perimeter of the project
-Don't lose the unique small town feel of Wheaton
-Bring more office space and office workers to the downtown
-Facilitate loans for small business to improve their storefronts
-Attract more people to existing businesses
-Add a hotel to the downtown
-Leverage the anticipated crowds for Costco into opportunities for downtown Wheaton

Streets & Sidewalks
-Improve sight lines for drivers
-Tame (or even periodically close?) Reedie Drive
-Provide buffers between cars, pedestrians, and bikes
-Provide wider sidewalks with more plantings and trees
-Include flexible seating
-Improve access to the metro station
-Possibly partner with Brookside Gardens for plantings/streetscapes (I like this idea!)
-Design a signature lighting theme that includes banners, hanging flower baskets, etc.
-Improved bike lanes (how about any bike lanes?) and secure bike storage
-Less concrete, more green

Town Square
-Provide space for a farmers market and flea market; space should also work for the Taste of Wheaton and outdoor concerts
-Design a public space that welcomes all people
-Make sustainability a priority, especially stormwater management
-Better signage for metro entrances

Overall Vision
-More public art
-Pedestrian and bike access
-'Safety in Design' - through architectural design, lighting, and accessibility
-Celebrate Wheaton's diversity. We don't want to be Bethesda, Silver Spring, or Rockville!

If it's not Scottish, it's crap

2010-11-17T14:00:00.000-05:00

We have been hitting the Royal Mile pretty hard lately, but I can't seem to stop myself! Their burger continues to be one of my all-time favorites, and with cooler weather moving in, my craving for comfort food and beer keeps getting stronger. The other night when we stopped by, we were treated to a 'kilted' gentleman standing in front of the restaurant playing bagpipes. I immediately started envisioning bagpiper faceoffs ("We have a piper down!") with the Limerick Pub across the street once that opens.

As usual, the burger I got (with mushrooms and swiss cheese) was fantastic - flavorful meat that was nice and juicy, plus a big side of delicous fries. They were out of a few of the beers that I initially tried to order, but I still enjoyed the Old Dominion Oak Barrel Stout that I finally ended up getting.

Your chance to weigh in on Wheaton's redevelopment

2010-11-16T09:04:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow evening (Wednesday the 17th), B.F. Saul, the developer selected by the county to develop the 'triangle' of land between Viers Mill and Georgia, is holding a community workshop to get input on what Wheaton residents want to see happen in this area. This is a very important meeting for us Wheaton residents to really make our voices heard.

Based on my experiences with these types of meetings so far, there's always a very strong showing by long-time Wheaton residents, many of whom have pretty strong NIMBY leanings. I'd like to see a more balanced cross-section of our community at these meetings, both homeowners and renters. I've heard stories of developers avoiding Wheaton in the past for redevelopment efforts simply because they got the impression that residents really don't want anything to change. While it's perfectly understandable that some residents don't want any redevelopment to happen in Wheaton, I know that there are also alot of other residents out there who are in support of it.

The meeting is on Wednesday, the 17th (tomorrow), from 7pm to 9pm at the Crossway Community Center in Kensington (guess there aren't any large meeting spaces in downtown Wheaton?). The address is 3015 Upton Drive, Kensington. It sounds like they're going to have break-out sessions on different topics, so it will be more of a workshop than a public meeting, which I think is a good thing. The county has a press release with a few more details. B.F. Saul has also started a website to keep the community updated on the project of their redevelopment effort. This looks like a good place to go for updates on community meetings. Hope to see lots of residents at the meeting tomorrow!

Matamoros? Eh. Matamaybe...

2010-11-15T21:47:00.000-05:00

And with that cheesy blog title, I bring you my review of a dinner that me and Mr. WC had at Matamoros the other night. This was our first visit to the restaurant, and it's been on our list to try for a while. We ate there on a Tuesday and were the only people in the restaurant for most of our meal. We shared two pupusas for an appetizer. While they were a little burned here and there, I thought they were both alright. The fillings didn't really have enough flavor to them, though, so I mostly ended up tasting the sauce and cabbage we had with them more than the pupusas themselves.

Ordering entrees was a little frustrating since they were out of the first two fish dishes we were interested in trying. We ended up sharing two dishes - the plato durango, which includes a chicken enchilada, a beef taco (hard shell), and a chicken tamal with rice and beans; and the huachinango en cilantro, which was pan-fried red snapper with cilantro based sauce and grilled zucchini.

None of the items in the plato durango really stood out for me. Both chicken dishes were fairly bland, but I thought that the beef taco was decent. I liked the red snapper slightly better, but still, it just seemed a little bland to me.

While our meal at Matamoros wasn't horrible, it wasn't great either. I would definitely rank Sergio's ahead of Matamoros in terms of meal quality and for the variety of dishes offered on the menu. I'm also still a fan of Irene's for the pupusas, but I need to get back over there for a review because it's been a while.

Any readers out there have any other recommendations for Tex-Mex/Salvadoran/etc food in Wheaton? Perhaps a visit to a certain food truck is in order.

New Safeway is on the way

2010-11-09T13:12:00.000-05:00

Good news for all of you who have been waiting for-ev-er for the new Safeway project to get underway. On October 28th, the planning board gave their final approval for the project to move forward. Click here for the Gazette article, which includes an artist's rendering of the project. Courtesy of Eatin' In Wheaton, there's also a good post on DCMud with lots of info on the project.

On a side note, did you know that video links are available on the planning board's website for all of their hearings? Out of curiosity, I watched the portion of the meeting dealing with the Safeway approval. The new building sounds pretty sweet - there will be a 5th floor open-air terrace level with a lawn, pool, lounge area, and fire pit. Inside the building, there will be a fitness center, play room, and lounge. There will be an outdoor seating area at street level along the Safeway facade. The public art they have planned sounds kind of dull (little mini-figures showing people going about their businesss), but it was amusing to hear the developer and artist try to sell the idea to the planning board during the meeting...People will end up naming the statues! They'll dress them up for holidays! Eh, I don't know about that. But still, I'd rather have something small and innocuous than some sort of big, ugly public art monstrosity.

Now that the project has the planning board's approval, they'll still have to get all of their building permits for the demolition and new construction work. So, it will be a number of months before any progress is seen, but things seem to be on the right track!

And then there was one...

2010-11-09T08:22:00.000-05:00

As many of you probably noticed either last night or this morning, there is now only 1 working escalator in the Wheaton metro station. So far, they've had the functioning elevator running in the 'up' direction, which I think makes sense regardless of whether it's in the morning or evening rush hours. But, it's probably only a matter of time before I come home from work and find it running in the 'down' direction. Who needs a gym when we have the Wheaton escalators, right?

***Update on Wednesday, 11/10: Two escalators were up and running this morning!

The Walking Dead

2010-10-22T15:56:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow night (Saturday, the 22nd) the third annual Silver Spring Zombie Walk will invade downtown SS. I will be there, dressed as a zombie ~~bridesmaid~~ grunge person from the nineties (it's going to be too cold for my bridesmaid dress!), along with several of my zombie friends. Even if you don't want to dress up, this zombie walk is truly a sight to behold. Also, the AFI will be playing two excellent movies that night - Dawn of the Dead at 9:45 (which all of us zombies will be lurching to) and Susperia at midnight. I will going to both, but I'm probably most excited about seeing Susperia on the big screen.

One day, all of us Wheaton zombies will have organize our own walk, but for now, come on down to Silver Spring to participate.

Here are a few links:
Silver Spring Zombie Walk
Gazette Article
DCist review of the movies
AFI recap of Dawn of the Dead (get tickets early!)
AFI recap of Susperia

See you there!

Dinner at New Kam Fong

2010-10-13T21:43:00.000-04:00

My boyfriend and I enjoyed a great dinner at New Kam Fong last night. After seeing Good Eatin' in Wheaton's mention of a recent review of the restaurant, we decided to head back over for a meal. It's been about 8 or 9 months since the last time we dined there. After seeing mentions of it in several reviews, my boyfriend tried the twin lobster entree with scallions and ground pork sauce. The waitress told him he could choose from a number of sauces, but he went with the ground pork, which ended up being a good choice. The dish came out on a huge platter, and the plate was postiviely teeming with big chunks of lobster. The lobster was still on the shell, but had been cut into large pieces. It had been fried so that the pieces of meat were nice and crispy. The green onions and ground pork were an interesting addition to the dish, and they worked really well. Even on its own, the ground pork sauce was fantastic. Add that to fried lobster, and it's pretty much the best thing ever. Be prepared to get messy if you get this dish. Picking through the sauce-covered shells to get to the meat takes some work, but it's worth it. The dish cost $23.99, which seems like a pretty good deal for all that food. It was enough to feed two people if they weren't super hungry.

I got the 1/2 Beijing roasted duck, which came with pancakes, some interesting fluffy fried things in various colors (white, orange and pink), and thinly sliced raw scallions. The pancakes were very similar to tortillas, making this dish seem similar to fajitas. The duck had a crispy fried skin and the meat was very juicy. Another nice bonus of this dish is that the meat was already separated from the bones, which made for very easy eating compared to some of the roast duck I have had at Chinese restaurants. While this dish wasn't as flashy as the twin lobster meal, I still really enjoyed it. Also, the waiters were very nice and friendly throughout our meal, but they got kind of swamped when a large family group came in and took up several tables at once.

Ever since the new Hollywood East opened, we've been heading there for dim sum on the weekends to satisfy our cravings for Chinese food. Our meal at New Kam Fong is a good reminder of all the other Chinese options here in Wheaton.

Alleged Wheaton Tire Slasher (and Duck Murderer?) Apprehended

2010-10-08T08:56:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, the Gazette posted an article describing a series of recent tire slashings in the neighorhood just east of the Wheaton metro station. The crimes appear to target Hispanic homeowners in the neighborhood.

The Washington Post later had an update that a local Wheaton resident has been arrested in connection with the crimes.

Now, this morning, there is yet another article stating that the same person is suspected of killing and decapitating a duck being kept in the yard of one of the tire slashing victims.

There is contact information listed in the articles for anyone who may have additional information regarding these crimes.

Possible Community Garden in Wheaton

2010-10-07T15:18:00.000-04:00

I'm on the email list for updates on community gardens in Montgomery County, and the email update that I received today had some promising news for gardeners in Wheaton. There is a community garden being proposed near Wheaton Regional Park along Kemp Mill Road. A meeting is scheduled on October 21st, 7:00-8:30pm at 11721 Kemp Mill Rd (Silver Spring Center/Randolph Academy) to share a powerpoint presentation about the proposed plans and gather input from the community. The meeting will be held in the large meeting room in the school at that location.

I would have to drive to this garden since it's not quite close enough to walk to from my house, but it's still encouraging to see a possible community garden coming to the Wheaton area. Information about existing community gardens in the county is available here.

Safeway Update

2010-10-05T12:00:00.000-04:00

It's seemed like the whole Safeway project is taking for-ev-er. Why don't they just tear the old building down already!?!?! Well, I've recently heard an update about the status of the project. Plans are still moving forward, and the developer has a hearing on October 28th with the planning board (I'll post more info when I have it) for their final site approval. Once that approval is reached, their site plan will be approved, which I *think* means that they can begin demolition and prepare the site for the new building. All the rest of the building permits will still have to be approved, but it will be great to see some progress. I didn't get any information about when the demo work might actually start, but it's encouraging to know that things are moving forward.

I also got some info about the planned design of the project. The Safeway store itself will be more than twice as big as the existing store and will have either a Starbucks or some sort of coffee stand inside of it. On my recent vacation to Washington, there were Safeways all over the place, and they all seemed newly renovated. If we get anything close to the new stores I saw in Washington, I'll be happy. There will be about 150 spaces for shoppers in the parking garage on site. This isn't alot of parking, but I think that the store will get alot of foot traffic from people leaving the metro, apartment dwellers, and local homeowners (like me). The apartment building will have just under 500 units, and it sounds like there will about an even mix between studios, 1 bedrooms, and 2 bedrooms. It also sounds like they are planning lots of nice amenities for their residents, like a roof deck pool, outdoor space on the top floor, fitness center, washer/dryers in units, etc. This could all change as project moves forward, but it's good to see that they're aiming high.

Rendering from a Gazette article about the project

I'm back, baby!

2010-10-03T17:14:00.000-04:00

I apologize for being MIA for the past month and a half. First, I had to deal with several weeks of 12 hour days at my job (not fun), then I had a 2-week vacation to Seattle and Washington state (very fun). I'm happy to now be back home and finally have some free time on my hands to work on some posts.

The trip to Washington (the 'other' Washington) was great. I spent one week hiking and camping in Olympic National Park...

Rialto Beach

Including a few days staying in the Twilight-vampire-crazy town of Forks...

Yes, there a stand selling Twilight-themed firewood

Spent a few days in Mt. Rainier National Park...

Yep, that's Mt. Rainier

Drove up the coast along Chuckanut Drive...

We had an amazing dinner at Chuckanut Manor, which included this great view of the sunset from our table on the deck.

To the interesting town of Bellingham...

We enjoyed an awesome beer sampler and tasty food at this brewery.

Then wrapped up the trip with a few days in Seattle.

The neighborhood of Fremont in Seattle was lots of fun and we enjoyed walking around to enjoy all the public art. Fremont is well known for its gigantic troll sculpture that is hunched underneath one of their highway overpasses.

Yes, that's a real VW beetle in the trolls hand

The Fremont troll got me brainstorming ideas for a distinctive public art piece for Wheaton that would have a similar impact. I decided that the field of antennas along University present an excellent opportunity for a cool/weird public art piece that would be a landmark for Wheaton region. So, I present to you my design concept for this public art piece (using Microsoft Paint on my home computer)...the Wheaton King Kong!

Be back in a few days with some more Wheaton info!

Primary Elections - Cliff Notes Version

2010-08-19T19:16:00.000-04:00

I've become much more interested in local politics since I've moved to Wheaton because I've been able to see firsthand the impact that the local government has on our changing neighborhood. Are you happy about the incentives Costco is getting to open a store here? Want to see more development encouraged around the metro? Or maybe you like Wheaton the way it is and don't want your tax dollars going to change things. Whatever your opinion about Wheaton's much discussed redevelopment, as long as you have an opinion, you should care about who is elected into our local county government.

Since our area leans heavily toward Democratic candidates, the primary elections here are just as important as the general elections on November 4th. I found that the info out there about the primaries can be a little jumbled, so here's the information that all of you Wheatonites out there should care about, along with links where I think they're helpful:

Date of primary: Tuesday, September 14th, 7am-8pm

Early voting information: Click here.

Absentee ballott information: Click here. (PDF)

Polling location for Wheaton: Use this link to find it based on your address.

County positions that you should care about, and who's running (this link lists all county candidates):
County Executive: Ike Leggett is running unopposed for the Democrats. Douglas Rosenfeld and Daniel Vovak are the two Republican candidates.

District 5 Council Member: Valerie Ervin is running unopposed for the Democrats. Joseph Russek is running unopposed for the Republicans.

At-Large Council Member: Having some at-large council members looking out for Wheaton will be critical for our neighborhood to get more attention from the county council in the future. After all, we only have a single council member representing our district, and there are 8 other people on the council (4 at-large members). While I have some favorites for who I'd like the at-large members to be, I'm going to avoid giving any endorsements since I admit that I'm not an authority on county politics. I encourage all of you to look into the positions of these candidates for yourself and head out to vote in the primaries.

Here are the Democratic candidates:
Jane de Winter
Marc Elrich
Fred Evans
Nancy Floreen
George Leventhal
Raj Narayanan
Hans Riemer
Duchy Trachtenberg
Becky Wagner

And here are the Republican candidates:
Robert Dyer
Mark Fennel
Brandon Rippeon
Robin Nixon Uncapher

And one Green party candidate:
George Gluck

Happy Anniversary, Wheaton. I love you.

2010-08-08T12:50:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been just over a year now since I've moved to here, and I've got say, Wheaton, I think I'm falling in love with you. When we first met, I found myself comparing you to your flashier younger sister, downtown Silver Spring. But now that I've gotten to know you, I think you're really special. I mean, good looks aren't everything, right? And what you don't have in looks, you make up for in personality. I never knew how delicious Thai food could be before you. And I never realized how convenient it could be to have three paint stores all within walking distance from my house (Ben Moore, Duron, McCormick). Before I got to know you better, I had no idea that just beyond your slightly run-down strip malls lie a beautiful park and gardens. If it wasn't for you, I never would get to experience the western hemisphere's longest escalator every single day, whether it's running or not. I've really enjoyed our first year together, Wheaton, and I'm looking forward to many more to come.

Blog Party

2010-08-06T20:59:00.000-04:00

I headed over to Jackie's Side Bar in Silver Spring last night for a farewell happy hour for Dan Reed, the creative genius behind just up the pike. It was great to meet Dan in person after reading his blog for years now. I also spent some time chatting with local photographer Chip Py, and Casey, a local Silver Spring resident. As a relative newcomer to the Silver Spring area (going on six years now), I was really impressed by everyone's knowledge of and involvement in local politics. I definitely learned more about Ike Leggett's political past than I've ever wanted to know (and I'll just leave it at that). This was the first time I've met with local bloggers, and everyone was very welcoming. I definitely hope to stay in touch with this group who is so enthusiastic about our area and where it's headed in the future. Thanks, guys!

We got the power

2010-07-28T18:07:00.000-04:00

After hearing on the PEPCO hotline yesterday afternoon that it would be Friday before our power was restored, it was a pleasant surprise when our electricity came back on yesterday around 6pm. How did you survive the power outage? Are you still waiting for PEPCO to restore yours?

I got out for a bike ride last night while my house was cooling down for the night. I saw a higher-than-average number of people out enjoying the nice weather, especially in Sligo Creek Park. Personally, I didn't mind the power outage, other than the loss of power to our refrigerator, which was a bummer. The PEPCO outage map is showing just over 1000 Wheaton residents without power, down from over 7000 yesterday when I checked.

In other news and notes, I saw an article today about the new library that has opened in Shaw. I think this is an example of the sort of community hub that we could have had with a new library in Wheaton's downtown. Regardless of your opinion on what Wheaton should have, I think you can agree that the residents of Shaw are getting a beautiful addition to their neighborhood.

The Gazette had a few Wheaton-related postings today. A local developer, B.F. Saul, was awarded a contract by the county to redevelop the 12 acres of land around the metro. I work in the architectural field and I have never heard of this developer before. I checked out their website, and all I can say is...barf. And apparently all they can say is, "We love to build large boring buildlings without any distinguishing characteristics. Yay. Go us." They better get one hell of an architect to work with them on this, because I don't see anything in their portfolio of work that would indicate they can pull off a major redevelopment effort in Wheaton.

Also, the planning board is holding a public meeting tomorrow to discuss the Wheaton Sector Plan. I've been working really long hours lately, so I'm a little doubtful that I'll get to attend, but I should really try to get over there for it. Here's the info from the Gazette article, including directions on how to sign up to speak. I saw a blurb a while ago saying that the redevelopment in Wheaton was going to focus on residential growth without any growth in commerical office space. That seemed like a weird strategy to me (can you think of any bustling local areas that don't have any office space?). The article on this hearing doesn't mention anything about that strategy, but I'll be interested to see if that resurfaces. Here is a link to the county's website with information about the current sector plan.

A few interesting links...

2010-07-15T22:49:00.000-04:00

Since my job has been possessing my entire body and soul for the past week or two, I'm going to take it easy and share a few interesting links with you...

First of all (and most importantly!), the Silver Spring Zombie Walk is on. I've participated in the zombie walk for the past two years - as a regular 'human' the first year, and as a zombie mummy last year. I am a huge fan of Halloween, and the zombie walk is one of the highlights of the season for me. Until we get enough Wheaton zombies to reenact Dawn of the Dead at our own mall, I'm going to stick with the zombies in Silver Spring.

The excellent local blog, Just Up the Pike, recently posted about the new, superhero-sounding Citizens League of Mongomery County. It sounds like they might be a good antidote to many of the NIMBY-minded neighborhood associations in our county that often provide a strong voice against the kind of start growth that I'm in favor of. Right now, their board members seem to skew towards the west of Wheaton, with heavy representation for the North Bethesda/White Flint area. So, if any of you politically-minded readers out there want to get involved in county politics and redevelopment efforts, this might be an interesting association to participate in.

On the crime and punishment front, two disturbing crimes have stood out over the past few weeks. Luckily, there have been arrests for both of them. First, there was the carjacking near Crisp 'N Juicy of a man who was putting his kids into their car seats. Fortunately, he was allowed to get his kids out of the car before the carjackers took off with it. Here's the latest from the Gazette on the arrest that was made. While you can't help but be distracted when you loading kids, groceries, or shopping bags into your call, this is a reminder to stay as alert as possible when getting in and out of your car.

The second crime, which just happened in Silver Spring, is really horrible. It occured in the new Civic Center plaza that just opened and resulted in serious injuries to an innocent bystander. I also find it upsetting that the horrible acts of a few delinquents are going to cast all the teenagers who hang out in downtown Silver Spring in a bad light. The various Silver Spring blogs are en fuego with people commenting on this, many of whom seem to be spiraling out into their own fantasy worlds of what a dangerous urban jungle downtown Silver Spring has become (really???). The Gazette has a wrap-up on the police response to this and several other recent incidents in the area.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay...

2010-07-09T14:35:00.000-04:00

I spent the long holiday weekend far far away from Wheaton in lovely Potter County, Pennsylvania, where my sister lives (in Shinglehouse, to be precise). So, as a mini-vacation from writing about all things Wheaton, I thought I'd share the highlights of our fun weekend in the country, much of which centered around some delicious, locally grown food.

My boyfriend and I met my sister for lunch on Saturday in Ansonia, PA, which is close to the very scenic PA Grand Canyon. We ate at the Burnin' Barrell Bar, whose menu features beef sourced from local, grass-fed cattle. My burger was delicious and tasty, as were the philly cheesesteak and italian hoagie that we also shared.

After lunch, we headed over to the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum where they were holding their annual Barkpeelers Convention, which features demonstrations and competitions centered around the logging history in the region. The highlight of the day was the greased pole competition. No, it's not as dirty as it sounds, but it is maybe a little gay (don't tell those strapping young country boys that, though!). The 8ft long log cake was also quite impressive.

In the photo below, the greased pole competitors are preparing to hit each other with heavy beanbags. First person to fall off the 'greased pole' (a tree covered in Crisco) loses.

We also made a visit to the Cuba Cheese Shoppe in Cuba, NY, where we tried lots of delicious cheeses. We brought home some 'drunken goat cheese' (goat cheese with white wine in it) and a white cheese with garlic, basil, and sun-dried tomatoes (pungent but tasty).

My sister also treated us to lots of delicious food over the weekend, much of it coming from her own garden and chickens, which she keeps in her back yard. We had fresh eggs for breakfast in the morning and roasted chicken for dinner from some 'meat chickens' they butchered a few days before the weekend (glad I wasn't there for that). We also enjoyed some lettuce, cucumber, and a few squash from the garden, which we had with the roasted chicken for dinner.

Here are some 'before' pictures...

And here are some 'after' pictures...

Overall, it was a relaxing weekend and a welcome escape from all the hot weather in DC!

Wheaton Whish List - A Community Garden

2010-06-29T21:43:00.000-04:00

I have a little bit of a green thumb. Don't worry, it's not a medical condition. I just like to garden. I lived in apartment for several years and now own a house with no yard to garden in, so I've turned to community gardens as a way to garden and raise my own food without having a yard.

I first tried out a community garden in College Park near the Home Depot on Cherry Hill Road. It didn't work out well for me - I had to drive there from Silver Spring and they didn't have a water source so I had to carry in jugs of water (not fun). This year, I'm in my second season of gardening in a community garden near Fort Totten. It's kind of a long drive from Wheaton, but I can hop off the metro at Fort Totten on my way home from work and walk to the garden, so that's nice.

What would be even nicer is a community garden in Wheaton. I emailed two people with the county parks and recreation department that are working on new community gardens (David Vismara and Ursula Sabia Sukinik) to ask if any plans are in the works. According to David, there is a lack of unused open space in the neighborhood, especially land owned by the county. He did also say that suggestions for locations are welcome. In the meantime, if you want to be added to the waiting list of a community garden elsewhere in the county, email Ursula, who is the coordination for the community garden program. Her email address is Ursula dot SabinaSukinik at mncppc-mc.org. If you have any ideas for possible community garden locations, let me know!

Some cherry tomatoes starting to grow on one of my plants.

Urban Hike - Wheaton to Takoma Park

2010-06-22T16:30:00.000-04:00

In anticipation of a fall hiking/camping vacation in Washington state, I'm working on building up my endurance. Since this past weekend was so hot and steamy, I decided to skip doing a serious hike and use one of the many trails in the area to get in some miles. My route started at my house in Wheaton and ended at the Sunday farmer's market in Takoma Park. I used the Sligo Creek Trail (pdf) for most of my route, and the total distance was between 6 and 7 miles. Here's a description of my urban hike with photos...

I started out on Windham Lane, which starts around Georgia Ave and continues all the way to the Sligo Creek Trail. At one point, the road ends, but a footpath continues and connects back up with the next section of Windham.

Windham ends at the Sligo Creek Trail. Once you get there, turn right to start heading towards Silver Spring and (eventually!) Takoma Park. As you can see, there was lots of shade thanks to the trees, so this was a relatively comfortable walk on a hot sunny day.

Continue along the trail, making several road crossings. Eventually you'll see Holy Cross Hospital and the 'tunnel' that goes under the beltway. You're getting close to Silver Spring!

As you continue along, ponder the mileage markers along the trail, none of which go higher than 1 1/2 miles, even though the trail is nearly 9 miles long. What do they mean??? The 'Finish' sign that happens around the mid-point of the trail is especially mysterious.

As you get closer to Takoma, the trail starts to hop back and forth over Sligo Creek using a series of scenic bridges. It starts to feel like some of the woods I might see on my upcoming trip to the Pacific Northwest.

Eventually, when you reach Adventist Hospital, you'll see a sign for the Takoma Park Community Center. At this point, you leave the trail and turn right onto Maple Ave to follow the sign.

Continue along Maple Ave. past several blocks of apartment buildings. Eventually, you'll need to turn left to get onto Carroll Ave., which is running parallel to Maple. I turned left onto Grant Ave., then turned right at the traffic light for Ethan Allen Ave., which turns into Carroll Ave. You know you're getting close to middle of Takoma Park when the houses start to get more colorful...

And the lawn ornaments get much more interesting!

Eventually, the farmer's market comes into sight! Relax with some snacks at the market before taking the metro back to Wheaton.

Mi La Cay (a.k.a. Song Phat) Review

2010-06-21T20:56:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the long gap between posts, but I just got back from a week at the beach and before that work was crazy leading up to vacation. Now, I'm well-rested and ready to blog!

In my continuing exploration of Vietnamese options in Wheaton, my boyfriend and I paid a visit to Mi La Cay, formerly Song Phat (actually, there are still some Song Phat signs outside the building). The restaurant is in the same buidling as the wonderfully-named Hung Phat grocery and is the former location of Nava Thai. The dining room is simple, but fairly clean and comfortable.

We started our meal with an order of summer rolls, always a good way to check out a Vietnamese restaurant. I would rank the rolls higher than those at Saigonese. There was a good mix of fresh herbs and veggies in addition to the steamed shrimp, and I liked the peanut sauce that comes with them for dipping. My only complaint is that the shrimp still had the tails on them, so I had to kind of dig around in the roll between bites to pull off the tails.

I also started my meal with an order of mango bubble drink, which had a nice taste but strangely none of the tapioca balls you would expect. I tried to get my boyfriend to order the durian bubble drink, but he was too chicken. He made up for this weak showing, though, with what he ordered for dinner!

He ordered the lemongrass beef noodles soup and I ordered the vietnamese pancake so I could compare it to the crepe at Saigonese. My boyfriend's soup arrived with copious amounts of red chili oil floating on top, so it was spicy, but not oh-my-god burn off the roof of your mouth spicy. In addition to beef and noodles, it had a veritable cornucopia of interesting things floating in it (much of which we couldn't identify). There was a large pig knuckle floating in it, which made for good dinner entertainment while I watched him attempt to stab it with his chopsticks. There was also a beige-color pressed meat thing, and...(drumroll)...coagulated pig's blood, which my boyfriend actually ate. I may be brave enough to eat cow heart, but I wasn't interested in eating blood. When I asked him what it tasted like, he told me, predictably, "Well, it tastes like blood". Overall, he liked the soup, but said that it wasn't close to Nava Thai's floating market noodle soup, which is his gold standard for spicy noodle soups.

I liked my pancake much better than the one at Saigonese. Instead of being really thin and fried, the crepe had some thickness to it, which made the shrimp, pork, and bean sprouts inside seem more incorporated into the egg pancake. My only compliant was the sauce that came with it (nuoc cham) was kind of watery and not as zingy as it usually is. I ended up wishing I hadn't drowned my crepe in it. Otherwise, I liked it. I liked my dish a little bit more than Saigonese, but I'd need to try more dishes before I could decide which restaurant is better overall.

For more reviews of Mi La Cay, click here or here.

A Quickie Review of Hollywood East

2010-06-04T13:25:00.000-04:00

On Memorial Day, I decided to stop by Hollywood East for lunch and was expecting to order off their regular menu since they only have dim sum carts on the weekend. Much my surprise, they had dim sum carts in operation since it was a holiday. So, we sat down and started to dig in.

I think they maybe had less carts than usual since it wasn't the weekend, but we still were able to try a good variety of food. The dining room was about 75% full when were there, so that's a good sign for their business. I wasn't taking photos or keeping notes during our meal, so I'll just say that most of the dumplings and rolls we had were steamed and delicious. The steamed dishes we had included shrimp, pork, and veggies. One of the more unusual steamed dumplings had pork, peanuts, garlic, and spinach in it. On the fried side, we shared some of their fried crab balls and also a taro root fried dumpling, which was one of my favorites of our meal. We also had a bbq pork 'croissant', which had a wonderful flakiness to it. We enjoyed some of their custard carrots for dessert. Yum!

In addition to the great food, the service was also excellent. We got frequent refills on water, the waiters and the manager (or maybe one of the owners?) stopped by our table to see how everything was, and the same manager chatted it up with us as we were waiting at the register to pay. So in addition to eating some great dim sum, we were also treated as valued customers by the employees.

Weird Wheaton News...

2010-06-01T20:57:00.000-04:00

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I spent most of it camping and hiking in George Washington National Forest down by Luray, VA. It's a beautiful area to visit to get away from it all. Oddly enough, as we were driving near Front Royal, we spotted a "Keep Sligo Golf Open" sign. We wizzed by too fast to get a picture, but it was definitely one of the green signs that you see around our neighborhood. Maybe a Wheaton resident has a vacation cabin down there?

And I wanted to share this week's weird Wheaton news story from WTOP.

And here's another weird news story...apparently a little person is a wanted murder suspect?

Did you bike to work today?

2010-05-21T22:00:00.000-04:00

Today was the annual Bike To Work Day in the DC area. Local biking organization WABA organized the event and even had 'ride convoys' today to help beginners bike into their offices. Did any of you bike to work today?

I took the plunge and rode my bike in from Wheaton to Farragut West where my office is. It's about 13 miles each way (whew!). I've been strategizing on bike routes since I moved to Wheaton because I would bike into downtown DC every so often when I lived in Silver Spring using either the Capital Crescent Trail (longer route but car-free) or Beach Drive. A few weekends ago, I did a test run into my office using Plyers Mill, snaking through neighborhoods down towards Capitol View, then onto Jones Mill, which connects into Beach Drive. The route worked, but the windy, curvy roads to get to Beach Drive were an issue both from a car safety standpoint (no shoulders) and because they were damn hard to bike up on the way home!

So after talking to some people and looking at a suggested route on WABA's website, I devised a new route, which I tried for the first time today. Here's my disclaimer: Part of my route to get to Silver Spring involved riding my bike on sidewalks along Georgia, which you're not really supposed to do. I was thinking on my ride in how nice it would be if they widened the sidewalk enough to have a bike lane that people could use as a direct route to Silver Spring. A link like that would give easy bicycle access to downtown S.S., the metro station, and the Capital Crescent Trail.

Going from Wheaton to downtown DC:
-Ride the sidewalks along Georgia, using the 'bridge to nowhere' to cross the Beltway
-Take the right to 16th St., continuing to use the sidewalk until the road opens up into multiple lanes. Then, I moved into the street
-At the weird intersection with Colesville Road, make a right turn onto North Portal.
-From there, I used the directions provided by WABA
Biking time: 1 hour
Distance: 13 miles

This route in was nice, but because of the hills, I devised a different route home through the city along streets with more gradual hills instead of the steep ones in Rock Creek. I was pretty happy with this route. You're always going to go uphill heading out of the city, but this route felt easier than alot of ones that I've tried and the traffic was fairly light:
Going from downtown DC (around Farragut West) to Wheaton:
-Go north on 18th St.
-Right on Florida Ave
-Left on 11th St (bike lanes)
-Hop over one block to 10th St once 11th becomes one way in the opposing direction
-Left on Randolph, then a quick right onto Kansas (bike lanes)
-Left onto Missouri, then a quick right onto 3rd St
-When 3rd ends at Blair Road, take a left then quick right to under the Metro Bridge. This puts you onto Sandy Spring Road, which turns into Maple Ave
-Continue on Maple Ave through beautiful Takoma Park until you reach the intersection with the Sligo Creek Parkway.
-Hop onto the Sligo Creek Trail. Once the road gets better shoulders (after you cross Colesville), I left the trail and used the road instead.
-My route home from Sligo Creek was to turn left on the trail connector leading to Windham Ln. Windham eventually dead ends, but a foot/bike trail continues on and connects up with another section of Windham. This road then intersects with Amherst Ave, and you're back in downtown Wheaton!
Biking Time: 1 hour 20min (like I said, there are some hills!)
Distance: 13 miles

Encouraging Redevelopment News

2010-05-19T12:01:00.000-04:00

A newly posted article in the Gazette covers some encouraging news about the county's redevelopment efforts for Wheaton. The county has received multiple bids by developers for both the metro bus bays and the surface parking lot #13 in the triangle retail area.

Planning Board Update - Costco

2010-05-18T13:09:00.000-04:00

Last week, the planning board unanimously disapproved the proposed ZTA 10-04, which would have allowed Costco to bypass the standard county process for installing a 16-pump gas station. The Gazette has an article discussing the latest planning board decision. The county council has the ultimate say in whether or not this goes through, and as I've mentioned before, the hearing for this decision is on May 20th.

In addition to giving me a bad opinion of Westfield management, this whole ZTA issue has also given me a fairly bad opinion of Ike Leggett. The ZTA was originally proposed by him, in addition to the $4 million that he wants to give Costco to further sweeten the deal.

Cabanita Review

2010-05-17T20:25:00.000-04:00

I spent lunchtime on Sunday trying all sorts of tasty ethnic food at the Taste of Wheaton, then spent the afternoon over at Brookside Gardens strolling around and enjoying the nice weather. For dinner, I was feeling adventurous, so my boyfriend and I headed over to Cabanita on 11305 Elkin St. around the corner from the Royal Mile. This place has been on my radar ever since Eatin in Wheaton mentioned it in one of his posts.

The restaurant specializes in food from the Arequipas region of Peru. The place doesn't look like much from the outside, but inside the walls were painted a cheery yellow color with photos of Arequipas decorating the walls. The wall-mounted TV was tuned to a spanish-language sports channel, but it was later changed to a spanish music channel. It was a little loud, but not too distracting.

They had a fairly big menu, with just about everything listed in both english and spanish. We did notice that a spanish-only part of the menu listed 'cuy' as being available if you give them 5 days notice. Cuy (pronounced 'kwee') is guinea pig, which is a fairly popular traditional dish in Peru. Well, since we didn't give them 5 days notice, cuy wasn't in the cards for us, so we looked over the rest of the menu. It wasn't quite as cheap as we had hoped - most of the entrees were in the range of $12-$18.

We shared a pitcher of chicha, which is a corn-based drink (non-alcoholic at Cabanita). It resembed a red fruit punch with a little bit of a cinnamon taste. I liked it, but the pitcher was way too big for two people to share. We then ordered an appetizer of roasted sliced potatoes, which came with a 'mild sauce' that was thick and tasted a little like peanut sauce. It was good, but not super-exciting.

Next we ordered two entrees to share. First was grilled beef heart, which came with crispy sliced potatoes and a vareity of corn that has really huge kernels. It was one of the cheaper dishes at $9. I've never had beef heart before, but the grilled skewers of meat were tender and very flavorful.

The other dish we ordered was lomo saltado. It was about $13 and consisted of roasted beef tenderloin, onions, and red peppers all cooked in the beef broth with french fries thrown in with them. Peruvian people really like their potatoes, but that's okay because I also love taters. The dish came with a side of rice, which was great for soaking up the broth. Again, the beef was very tender, and all the vegetables and beef cooked together gave the dish a rich taste.

Our bill came to about $38, but you could definitely eat for less if you skipped the appetizer and maybe ordered a glass of chicha instead of the pitcher we got. We just happened to get two beef dishes, but they had a number of fish dishes that also looked good as well as some chicken.

The restaurant was empty when we first walked in around 6, but a few families came in later in our meal, which livened things up. Our waitress was friendly and helpful, and I got the impression that she would have been happy to help us out if we had any questions. I give Cabanita two thumbs up!

A Tasty Taste of Wheaton

2010-05-16T18:05:00.000-04:00

I attended my first Taste of Wheaton today with a few friends, and it was a good time. Lots of people there enjoying the nice weather, good food, and questionable music (we had a drum circle as background music the entire hour we were there).

Here are some reviews of the 'tastes' we had today:
Pollo Sabroso: I had a tasty chicken pupusa with tangy cole slaw and red sauce (fairly good as far as pupusas go) with a side of fried yucca (good, but not super crispy). My boyfriend also got some fried chicken that he enjoyed.

Hollywood East: We had a number of smaller dim sum items from them - a baked pork bun, steamed pork bun, spring rolls, pork dumpling and a sweet sesame ball. Both pork buns had yummy barbequed pork inside, and I really liked the sesame ball, which was filled with a sweet bean paste. Based on the tasty food we had today, checking out the new incarnation of Hollywood East is high on our list.

Global African Cafe (an amusing website, especially if you click on 'menu'): I got the last meat pie (sorry to Good Eatin' in Wheaton for buying the last one) and the chicken yassa. The meat pie had a crispy shell and was filled with ground beef and spices. It had some heat to it, but wasn't super spicy. The chicken yassa was moist stewed chicken on the bone with carrots, peas, and onions on the broth. Again, spices gave it a little bit of heat, but not much. Based on what we had, we'll definitely be heading over to their restaurant sometime to try out some other dishes.

Marchones: We all shared some mini cannolis, which were a nice sweet break from all the savory food we were having.

IHOP: We just got some lemonade from them. We sat near the stand to eat some food and noticed that the funnel cakes they were frying were pre-cooked and sitting in a plastic bag. If they had been making funnel cakes with fresh batter, we would have probably gotten one. Still, it was a better idea than trying to get people to buy pancakes at a street festival.

Los Cobanos: This was the last place we stopped by, and were getting pretty full by this point, so I just got the chicken tamale. After eating some amazing tamales in Mexico last year, I've been on a quest to find tamales around here that rival the ones I had on my trip. So far, Samantha's in Silver Spring has been the best. The tamale from Los Cobanos was still wrapped in the banana leaf when I got it and had a nice smooth texture. It wasn't as good as the ones from Samantha's, but not bad for street food during a festival.

On deck for dinner tonite...an exploratory mission to Cabanita on Elkin Street.

Kensington Heights Costco Website

2010-05-14T07:41:00.000-04:00

I found out yesterday that the Kensington Heights Citizen's Association has put together a website on all things Costco-related - a calendar of important county meetings, info on the potential hazards of gas stations, maps of the neighborhood in relation to the proposed gas station and more. The association has been quoted, both in the Gazette and on their own website, as supporting the Costco store, so their main concern is with the gas station.

I, on the other hand, am against the whole thing completely (see my earlier post). Regardless, their website looks like a good resource for information on the proposed development. Check it out at http://www.savekh.org/.

Saturday Night Dinner at Jackie's

2010-05-12T21:16:00.000-04:00

Some good friends were visiting me this weekend and wanted to take me out for a nice dinner to celebrate a certain milestone birthday that I just had. After considering a number of factors (a celebration-worthy venue, quality food to impress my friends visiting from Philly, etc.), we decided to go to Jackie's in Silver Spring. After a number of recent chef changes, I wasn't sure how the experience would be, but the new chef at Jackie's didn't disappoint.

We started dinner with a complimentary breadbasket and truffled cheese fries that were cheesy, but classy (fitting in perfectly with the vibe at the restaurant). Between the three of us, we got the hot pot tuna sashimi, seared lamb rack, and a chargrilled mexican shrimp dish (not listed in the online menu). Each dish was very different, but they were all very flavorful and satisfying. The mix of different ethnic cuisines seemed a little scattered to me. In the end, though, all the dishes were modern interpretations of the international dishes, so I think they all worked.

We were planning to skip dessert because we were stuffed, but the chef herself stopped by our table and talked up the desserts, so we shared the cheesecake with shortcake crust and the banana split. Both were simple dishes, but that was welcome after some of the more complex flavors of the entrees we had.

Jackie's is not a cheap restaurant option, but the festive atmosphere and good food make it one of the best choices in the area for a special occassion meal. What's your pick for a special occasion dinner?

Planning Board meeting on Thursday

2010-05-12T20:05:00.000-04:00

This is just a reminder that the planning board is meeting tomorrow (Thursday) to vote on the zoning text amendment that would allow Costco to bypass the required environmental study for their proposed gas station. See my earlier post on information about attending the meeting or sending the board an email about this issue.

A Taste of Wheaton

2010-05-12T19:57:00.000-04:00

This Sunday is the 15th Annual Taste of Wheaton. Good Eatin in Wheaton just posted about this, and I thought I'd add my own post for good measure. I've never gone to this before, but I'm hoping to make it this year. Tastes of food cost from $1-$5. When I was in Marchone's last week, the owner mentioned that the will be participating, so that should be good. The Wheaton Urban District has posted a PDF listing the rest of vendors. I'll be looking forward to trying food from Ming Tree, El Boqueron, Umberto's, Pollo Sabroso, Los Cobanos, and Global Cafe African Grill, all of which I've never been to before.

Other non-food businesses that I'll be checking out are the Green Wheaton Sustainable Initiatives group, Brookside Garden, and the All Eco Center. Tables that I will be booing and heckling as I walk by include Westfield Wheaton, Bob Erlich for Maryland, and Verizon (with their screwed up Fios billing that has wasted hours of my life!).

Saigonese Review

2010-05-06T20:59:00.000-04:00

After enjoying some delicious bahn mi from Saigonese over the weekend, I went there this week for a sit-down meal to further explore its menu. First of all, the dining room was nicer than I expected it to be - fairly clean, soft classical music playing, asian-looking musical instruments decorating the walls. A few other tables were occupied, but it wasn't crowded. We were seated next to their goldfish tank, and it was kind of fun to watch the fishies swim around while we had dinner.

For an appetizer, we shared an order of summer rolls and stuffed squid. The summer rolls were okay, but a little unexciting. There were stuffed with pork, cabbage, and vermicelli noodles. The rolls came with fish sauce for dipping. The pork didn't seem to have much seasoning on it, and the rolls didn't have the cilantro, mint, veggies, the other summer rolls sometimes have. So, I would say they weren't bad, but they weren't super exciting. My favorite place for summer rolls is the Lotus Cafe in Silver Spring around the corner from Jackies. I was hoping Saigonese would unseat them, but no luck. The stuffed squid was filled with a meatball-like mix of seasoned pork, crab, shrimp, and a few veggies. It also came with fish sauce for dipping. The squid was a little chewy (not unusual for squid), but I liked the mealball filling, even though it was kind of falling out of the squid because they cut the whole concoction into slices for easier eating. Overall, I liked the squid better than the summer rolls, but my boyfriend found it a little greasy.

For dinner, we shared the pork vermicelli with imperial rolls and the crepe. The pork in the vermicelli dish was more marinated and flavorful than the pork in the summer roll, so that was good, and the dish came with the usual mix of veggies, cabbage, and noodles. I liked it and would probaby get it again. The imperial rolls were a little grease-laden, but ok. The crepe was different from other vietnamese crepes I've had - most were like frittatas with bean sprouts, shrimp, and chicken cooked into the egg mixture. The crepe at saigonese was extremely thin and fried to a crisp, then folded over with the sprouts, shrimp, and chicken in the middle (but not mixed in with the egg). It almost reminded me of a really thin taco shell with the fillings inside of it. The fillings were pretty good, but the crepe itself was kind of greasy.

So, overall, I would say that my favorite items at Saigonese were of the non-fried variety. On my way home from work tonite, I picked up some more bahn mi for dinner, and that remains my favorite thing so far from the restaurant. We also tried some of their fresh spring rolls with our bahn mi tonite, and I liked those better than the summer rolls we had when went there for dinner (more variety in the fillings and peanut sauce to dip them in).

Costco Updates

2010-05-06T09:30:00.000-04:00

The Gazette posted an article on their website yesterday quoting Westfield Wheaton management saying that the Costco project will probably not move forward unless the county council waives the environmental study requirements currently in place for new gas stations at shopping centers. I was totally scooped on this by Good Eatin in Wheaton and What's Up Wheaton, so check them out for some great coverage.

I have a big deadline at work this week, so I'm going to keep this short. These demands by Westfield and Costco are complete crap, and I'm going to be really pissed if the county council actually passes the ZTA (zoning text amendment) that would allow the environmental study to be bypassed. The Gazette article states that right now, a majority of council members say they will vote against the ZTA and I just hope they stand their ground as Westfield attempts to add pressure to their decision. I also think this says alot about how Westfield views its 'neighbors' in Wheaton if its strategy for bringing in a new tenant is to try to bulldoze over any concerns that the community has.

I know the county would love to get the added tax revenue and jobs that Costco will apparently bring in, and that's why I'm still a little nervous that the council members won't hold their ground about denying the ZTA. If something like this was going down in Bethesda, I think the council would have a much stronger reaction to it, but unfortunately, I'm just not sure if the council will stand up as strongly to defend Wheaton.

I'm posting the relevant meetings noted in the Gazette article if anyone wants to attend and have their voice heard:
1. The Planning Board will discuss the ZTA at their meeting on May 13, 8787 Georgia Ave, Time TBD. Right now, it's the last item listed on the board's agenda for a session that starts at 1:30pm. Also, you can send an email to the board, and if you reference the issue you're emailing about (ZTA 10-04) and they receive it at least 24 hours before their meeting, your email message will be provided 'for the consideration of the board'. Send your emails to MCP-Chair at mncppc-mc.org. My understanding is that after this meeting, the planning board will their recommendation to the county council, which will make the ultimate decision in whether to pass the ZTA.

2. The County Council will have a public meeting at 7:30pm on May 20, 100 Maryland Ave, 7th Floor (Stella B. Warner Council Building). I checked the county council website, and they don't post meeting agendas as far in advance as the planning board does, so right now, you can't view an agenda for the meeting on the 20th. Their website does note that as an alternative to participating in a council meeting in person, they will accept written material either in person before the meeting starts or by mail. It sounds like you may want to include 15 copies so that each council member can have a copy. I would keep letters short, since in-person testimony is limited to 3 mintues, and reference ZTA 10-04 and the May 20th meeting in the letter. The address is:
Council's Office of Legislative Information Services
5th Floor
Council Office Building
100 Maryland Ave.
Rockville, MD 20850

Between these two meetings and the Wheaton Sector Plan meeting on the 19th, there are lots of opportunities to have a say in what direction Wheaton's development heads in. Even if you don't have time to attend one of the meetings, at least send an email to the planning board or a letter to the council.

Forum on Wheaton Sector Plan

2010-05-04T08:03:00.000-04:00

I got an email from an employee of the county planning department about an upcoming forum to discuss the Wheaton Sector Plan. It's being held on Wednesday, May 19th starting at 6:30pm at the Gilchrist Center on 11319 Elkin. For more information, including a good summary of the goals for the Sector Plan, click here.

I put it on my calendar and will try to make it. This forum will be good opportunity to have your voice heard by the planning department as they work to finalize the plan that will guide Wheaton's development over the next 20 years.

Wheaton Bahn Mi Report

2010-05-02T20:54:00.000-04:00

While I'm a fan of Vietnamese food, I've never had bahn mi before. My boyfriend, on the other hand, very much enjoys it and has been talking for a while about finding a place in Wheaton that sells it. First of all, for any of you that have never heard of bahn mi, it's a sandwich made with a french baguette. Side note: there are lots of French tie-ins with Vietnamese food due to its status as a French colony until the mid 1900s (yes, I had to look that up in Wikipedia). So the bread is French, but the filling is all Vietnamese - typically some kind of marinated grilled meat, fish sauce, cilantro, peppers and assorted other veggies. Yum! Check out this photo for an idea of what it looks like.

So, my boyfriend went on a quest to find us some bahn mi. He stopped in at Hung Phat and Song Phat, but didn't see evidence of any bahn mi making at either of those locations. He hit the jackpot, though, when he stopped by the Saigonese Restaurant on Grandview Ave right in downtown Wheaton. Their menu in the window had a few types of bahn mi available - pork, chicken, beef, ham, plus a few other options that he couldn't remember by the time he walked back home with the payload. We both got a grilled pork bahn mi, which costs a whopping $3. The sandwiches were each about a foot long, which makes this a great deal for lunch or dinner.

On my first bite of the sandwich, I just bit into bread but didn't hit any fillings, and it was still a great first bite! Wow, the bread alone was impressive. It had a nice crispy crust that was very light and easy to bite through, and no toughness at all, which was impressive for how crispy the outside of the bread was. The grilled pork pieces inside the sandwich had nice crispy bits on them from the grill, with the fish sauce giving it that sweet/tangy taste that I really like in Vietnamese cooking. Other fillings included cucumbers, cilantro, and thinly sliced hot peppers.

Alas, I don't have any photos to share because I had just gotten home from a morning of hard labor at my community garden plot. At that point, grabbing my digital camera was the last thing on my mind when I had a nice big bahn mi sitting in front of me! The restaurant's online menu strangely doesn't list bahn mi, and the paper menu we got from them only lists bahn mi in a section that written in vietnamese, so it's not much help. The easiest way to check out what they offer is to walk by their store front and check out the list of bahn mi that they have in their window. Their menu has lots of other interesting food options in it, so this place is definitely on our radar for a future meal. Also, the restaurant has seating inside, but they also have a take out counter for food to-go.

Has anyone else gotten food from Saigonese before?

Saigonese Restaurant, 11232 Grandview Ave, 301-946-8002, website

My 2 cents on the Costco issue

2010-04-28T11:56:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm going to come right out and say it. I'm not a fan of the Costco plans for the vacant Hecht's space at the Westfield Mall. When I initially heard about the possible Costco, my first reaction was indifference. I don't have a Costco membership and I don't feel a need to store a year's supply of toilet paper at my house (nor do I have the space!).

The more I thought about it, though, the more strongly I started to feel that this is a bad move for Wheaton. To frame my argument against Costco, I'm going to paste in the goals announced late last year for the updated Wheaton CBD Sector Plan (more info at www.montgomeryplanning.org/community/wheaton/index.shtm).

Here is the list of goals from the planning board's website:

-Focus new development and revitalization efforts near the Metro's Red Line

-Reinvigorate Wheaton's downtown by creating a walkable community with a distinct identity

-Create a vibrant mix of jobs and housing
-Preserve Wheaton's ethnic diversity
-Design quality public spaces inviting to pedestrians
-Foster an environmentally sustatinable community

First of all, I want to say that I whole-heartedly support these goals. Wheaton is already well on its way to many of them, and the neighborhood's unique vibe combined with all the great potential that exists is one of the main reasons I moved here. If you take these goals and think about whether Costco will really help Wheaton to acheive any of them, you'll start to see why I have a problem with this.

As I started to collect my thoughts on all of this, I realized that I was going to create the mother of all posts if I talked about all the different issues that I see with bringing Costco in. So, I'm going to let this post stand as-is, and I'll organize future posts about Costco around each of the goals listed above.

Until then, I'll leave you with two images. The first image is the google street view of the Costco in Beltsville (only a 17 minute drive from Wheaton!). The second image is from the planning board's presentation about the updated sector plan for the Wheaton CBD. Which one do you think we should be aiming for?

Tiptoe through the tulips...

2010-04-27T00:15:00.000-04:00

Spring is in the air. The birds are singing, trees are budding, flowers are blooming. Where oh where in the endless strip malls of Wheaton can a person go to get in touch with nature? Brookside Gardens, of course!

Not only is Brookside one of the hidden gems of Wheaton, but even better, it's all free (except for that butterfly exhibit they sometimes have). The garden features paved paths wandering through a variety of landscapes, which are all beautifully maintained. They also have a main visitor center and two inter-connected greenhouses that are great to visit even if the weather outside isn't so nice. On a recent visit, I found fields of tulips in bloom. You can either drive to the garden or if you live close to Wheaton Regional Park, you can walk through the park to reach the garden (more on the regional park in a future post!).

http://www.brooksidegardens.org/

Helloooo Wheaton!

2010-04-23T21:45:00.000-04:00

After living in downtown Silver Spring as a renter for 5 years, I took the plunge into home ownership and moved up Georgia Ave to Wheaton. I'm excited about all that Wheaton has to offer (where else will you find the Hung Phat grocery store!), and I'm also interested in all of the possibilities out there for Wheaton's future. During my time as a SS resident, I became a regular reader of some great blogs coming out of the neighborhood - SilverSpringSingular, ThayerAvenue, SoCoEats, Just Up the Pike, and the Silver Spring Penguin (RIP).

When I moved to Wheaton last summer, I knew of only one blog in Wheaton, which is now defunct (Scenic Wheaton). I started to think about leaping into the world of blogging to help make some contributions to my new neighborhood just like all those great Silver Spring blogs I had been reading. Since then, I've come across a few new blogs (Good Eatin in Wheaton, What's Up Wheaton, and the Talk of Wheaton) and I've decided to add my voice to the growing blog community here in Wheaton.

So, hello to all of you out there! I hope to write about a variety of topics here in Wheaton. I love food, so expect to see lots of restaurant reviews, and I work in the architectural field, so I'll have alot to say about the new development that is planned and/or underway here in Wheaton.