The Early Bird

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 15, 2008

It’s a light week in Silver Spring, which should give everyone the opportunity to cast a ballot for The Penguin in the Shorty Awards.

The popularity contest pits Twitter microbloggers against each other in a bare-knuckle brawl for online supremacy. So far, The Penguin has taken down a few biggies in the news category, and we’re looking to take down a few more.

If you’re on Twitter, show The Penguin some love and vote for us. A Shorty Award ain’t no Pulitzer, but it’ll do for now.

With your patriotic duty complete, you’ll be free to partake in these events:

Monday

7:00 p.m. Silver Spring’s neighborhoods and pedestrian safety committees hold a joint meeting at the Silver Spring Regional Center (8435 Georgia Ave). This event is free and open to the public.

Tuesday

7:00 p.m. Silver Spring’s arts and entertainment district advisory committee holds its monthly meeting at the Silver Spring Regional Center (8435 Georgia Ave). This event is free and open to the public.

Wednesday

7:30 p.m. Silver Spring’s economic development committee holds its monthly meeting at the Silver Spring Regional Center (8435 Georgia Ave). This event is free and open to the public.

Thursday

3:30 p.m. Silver Spring’s urban district advisory committee holds its monthly meeting at Discovery Communications (1 Discovery Pl). This event is free and open to the public.

4:00 p.m. The county’s planning board reviews its planning concepts for Georgia Avenue, a major north-south corridor that stretches from South Silver Spring to the Howard County line. This free event takes place at planning HQ (8787 Georgia Ave) and is open to the public.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Dan Taylor.

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This Weekend

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 12, 2008

There’s enough holiday and artsy-fartsy crap going down in Silver Spring this weekend. However, ’tis the season when the entire Penguin staff takes in some good, ole-fashioned debauchery.

This year, it comes courtesy of the AFI Silver Theatre, which rolls the 2003 film “Bad Santa” this weekend and next. The comedy, starring Billy Bob Thornton and the late great Bernie Mac, has all the elements of a holiday classic: sex, swearing, more swearing, and unabashed alcoholism. There’s even a cute fat kid who learns the true meaning of Christmas. Awww!

So fill your cup with good cheer (or whatever’s on tap) and enjoy the weekend!

Friday

8:00 p.m. The Spooky Action Theater presents “Tales of Doomed Love (or Is It Ever Worth It?)” by Andrea Stolowitz. This event takes place at Montgomery College’s Black Box Theater (Philadelphia at Chicago Aves, Takoma Park) and costs $15 per person.

10:00 p.m. Event producer 88 presents Loda, a music and multimedia event, at the Gallery Lounge (1115 East-West Hwy). There is a $10 cover charge.

Saturday

1:00 p.m. Help the Pulmonary Hypertension Association collect enough blue lip prints to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Pucker up and make your contribution at the Pyramid Atlantic community-arts store (924 Ellsworth Dr). This event is free, open to the public, and goes until 5:00 p.m.

4:30 p.m. The Imagination Stage presents a free preview of its upcoming production of “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”. The performance takes place on Ellsworth Drive, between Georgia Avenue and Fenton Street, and is open to the public.

7:00 p.m. The Pyramid Atlantic community-arts store (924 Ellsworth Dr) presents a discussion on how audiences interact with landscapes and cityscapes in contemporary film and video. Featured film makers include Chris Lynn, Mar Solis and Fabienne Gautier. This event is free and open to the public.

8:00 p.m. The Spooky Action Theater presents “Tales of Doomed Love (or Is It Ever Worth It?)” by Andrea Stolowitz. This event takes place at Montgomery College’s Black Box Theater (Philadelphia at Chicago Aves, Takoma Park) and costs $15 per person.

Sunday

10:00 a.m. The AFI Silver Theatre (8633 Colesville Rd) presents Talk Cinema, a screening and discussion of one film that has not yet been released theatrically. Audience members do not know what the film is until they arrive at the theater. (Hint: “Two Oscar winners reunite onscreen for the second time in two years in this unconventional love story,” according to the AFI website.) This event costs $20 per ticket.

2:00 p.m. The Spooky Action Theater presents “Tales of Doomed Love (or Is It Ever Worth It?)” by Andrea Stolowitz. This event takes place at Montgomery College’s Black Box Theater (Philadelphia at Chicago Aves, Takoma Park) and costs $15 per person.

7:00 p.m. The Sonic Circuits festival showcases three groups — Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind, Lost Civilizations, and Blue Sausage Infant — as part of its ongoing experimental-music series. This event takes place at the Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center (8230 Georgia Ave) and costs $5 per ticket.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Philms.

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The Watercooler

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 11, 2008

It’s been a while since any noteworthy business news has popped on the Penguin radar. (We’ve left the thing radiating subatomic particles off the roof of Penguin corporate headquarters despite this recession. Don’t worry, it runs on solar power.)

But just this morning, the newsroom’s diligent radar technician detected three blips of note:

Coordinates 38.9953869, -77.0270788

The Fractured Prune Donut Shoppe is on a direct course for Fenton Street, to a retail space between The Men’s Warehouse clothing store and a rear exit for the Majestic movie theater.

According to Laurie Yankowski, spokesperson for the Downtown Silver Spring shopping center, the Ocean City-based bakery recently signed a lease to fatten pedestrians from 8512 Fenton St. Expect a March 2009 opening, she said.

Earlier discussion placed the donut shop at the former MotoPhoto shop, parked in a driveway leading from Fenton to the Whole Foods Market parking lot. That spot also has been used to temporarily house the Pyramid Atlantic community-arts store, now located on Ellsworth Drive.

Coordinates 38.991330, -77.030393

Cool technology is headed for Giant Foods at The Blairs, in the form of handheld price scanners. The scanners allow shoppers to (what else) scan bar codes as they drop their goodies directly into shopping bags. Shoppers then return the scanners at the cash register, where they settle the tab.

At the Giant on Rockville Pike, where scanners are already in use, bar-coded signs in the bakery department allowed shoppers to register individual Krispy Kremes on their supermarket joysticks. In the produce aisle, electronic scales weighed fruits and veggies, then spat out bar-coded stickers for shoppers to scan.

On the insidious side of cool, the scanners also recognize which aisle shoppers are in, and will beep and display advertisements for goodies in that aisle.

The scanners go live at The Blairs market on Saturday.

Coordinates 38.993216, -77.026495

The central business district’s guide to locally owned shops drops neighborhood-wide this month. The guide (a map, actually) points out about 200 retailers and services in the downtown area, and spells out the benefits of shopping at locally owned businesses.

According to Emily Adelman, who pulled together the guide for the nonprofit LEDC, it pays to buy local. For every $10 spent at a locally owned business, almost $7 of that stays in the hood. Compare that with $4 for every $10 spent at a national chain.

Copies of the guide were unleashed during a launch party Wednesday night at Jackie’s Restaurant. Didn’t score a copy? Local businesses should have them on display by next week, and it’s available as a PDF on the “Buy Local” program’s website.

Disclaimer: The Silver Spring Penguin is the local online media partner for Silver Spring’s “Buy Local” guide. Holler!

Photos by R. Pace/SSP.

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Downtown civic center takes slow road to ribbon cutting

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 11, 2008

Construction on downtown Silver Spring’s civic center is running behind schedule, putting off its grand opening by at least three months, one county rep announced.

Blame crappy soil quality at the construction site on Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive, Gary Stith, director of Silver Spring’s regional center, told members of the citizens advisory board Monday night. Crews had to dig up that dirt before starting on the hardcore construction, he explained.

The poor-quality soil, plus undisclosed issues with the county’s department of permitting services, translated to the building’s grand opening in March 2010, Stith said. The previous goal was to cut the red ribbon with oversized scissors in late fall or early winter 2009.

Stith still banked on a November 2009 dedication of a veterans memorial, which will sit towards Ellsworth Drive in a plaza adjacent to the civic center. However, most of the plaza — including the planned ice-skating rink — will remain closed to the public until construction on the site has progressed, he said.

It’s been a bumpy road for the project, made bumpier by a swath of grass carpet dropped on the site in 2005. The Turf (as it came to be known) was supposed to be a temporary thing. But when residents took to the open space, some in the hood began to question whether a paved plaza was the right idea.

After slugging it out in public forums and in front of the county planning board, the decision was made to move forward with the plaza, its veterans memorial and the ice rink. Workers tore up the Turf in September, two weeks before a groundbreaking ceremony on the site.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Katmere.

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Dining: Pomegranate Cafe

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 10, 2008

The pressure of opening a restaurant has to be enormous — the cost, the risk, the scrutiny of ruthless critics who don’t give a rat’s ass about the cost or the risk. It can’t be an easy gig.

It probably doesn’t help if that restaurant is a sushi joint located only steps away from dozens of federal fish experts. The Pomegranate Cafe, a small but tidy spot on the ground floor of The Bennington apartments, sits a few yards from offices of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Tough crowd.

So does the Pomegranate Cafe know fish as well as its neighbors do? Um yeah, pretty much.

The lunch special sushi ($8, below) offers among other things three pieces of nigiri — slices of fish lounging on small, individual cushions of rice.

The tuna nigiri has a soft squish and slightly bitter twinge to it, as tuna does; its salmon counterpart leaves a heavy, omega-3 feel on the palette. But that’s raw fish. Take it or leave it.

On the other hand, the shrimp nigiri puts a cooked swimmer on the plate. The flesh snaps pleasantly between the teeth, and its sweetness swirls nicely against the lightly vinegared rice.

Along with the nigiri, the lunch special comes with eight bite-sized pieces of California roll, constructed of sweet imitation crab meat, fresh avocado and rice, secured in a seaweed wrap. It’s the sushi that one imagines when thinking of sushi, and it’s pretty good.

Despite its doppelganger status, the imitation crab meat has a fresh, taut texture and works well against the softer (but not squishy) avocado. The smoky seaweed balances out the sweetness, and tiny orange pearls of fish roe add pop to every bite.

Even better than the California roll is the spicy tuna roll ($4, above), which arrives as six pieces on a plate. The raw tuna is finely chopped without becoming a mealy paste, mixed with hot sauce and creamy mayonnaise, then wrapped in a light layer of rice and seaweed.

The hot sauce is a little spicy (though not spicy ass), and the mayo cools things off with oh so good fatness. It’s tasty.

While the cafe does well with sushi, it needs some help with its hot entrees. The bibimbap rice bowl ($7, below) is a bland patchwork of soy sprouts, shitake mushrooms, cucumber, spinach and either beef or chicken over steamed rice.

Traditionally, this Korean dish cooks with raw egg and a dollop of spicy-ass sauce in the stoneware bowl in which it’s served. Pomegranate’s version dishes it out on the tepid side and with very little seasoning.

Similarly, the bulgogi bento box ($8) is listed on the menu as marinated rib-eye beef over rice. But what arrives resembles ground beef in a sweet teriyaki sauce. Its taste isn’t objectionable, but it’s not rib-eye.

At least the bento box comes along with two plump vegetable dumplings baked (that’s right, I said baked) until crisp. It’s good eats and can be ordered as a six-piece deal ($6).

Seating inside this bright cafe can be limited when the weather is rough, but patio furniture in the adjacent plaza takes that load off on nicer days. The staff is helpful, though the place operates mostly on counter service.

What remains to be seen is whether Pomegranate will cater strictly to the weekday workforce, or if its hours will stretch past 8:00 p.m. to accommodate area residents. At least it operates on weekends for everyone to check out.

Pomegranate Cafe, 1215 East-West Hwy, Silver Spring, (301) 562-9400.

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Advisory board wrestles with prospect of Purple Line tunnel

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 10, 2008

The idea of tunneling the Purple Line beneath downtown Silver Spring is a tasty morsel. But members of Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board weren’t sure how hard to bite down Monday night.

At the board’s monthly meeting in Lyttonsville, members agreed to draft a letter supporting development of the mass-transit project between Bethesda and New Carrollton. The letter, they said, could give the project a lift when it competes for federal funding.

However, members disagreed on how much emphasis the letter should place on tunneling beneath the downtown area and under Wayne Avenue. While some wanted to lean hard for the sake of neighborhood concerns, others didn’t want to antagonize the process.

“We need to be very clear that we support the Purple Line,” member Marc Woodard, of Sligo Hills, told his colleagues. “But don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Currently, tunneling is not an option on the state transit administration’s plate. Chalk that up to the guesstimated steep price tag. But according to board member and East Silver Spring resident Debbie Spielberg, data do exist that support a tunnel’s cost effectiveness.

“If you tunnel under Wayne Avenue, you pick up ridership numbers,” Spielberg told board members. That’s because an off-road ride wouldn’t have to sit in automobile traffic, and thus would have greater appeal to more riders, she explained.

The letter’s heavy emphasis on tunneling also could go a long way to rinse the bad taste out of some residents’ mouths. Board member Alan Bowser accused the state transit administration of not being straight up with people living in impacted neighborhoods.

“We deserved more information than they gave us,” Bowser, a Park Hills resident, said. “It didn’t seem like the transit administration’s report was objective.”

And pleas for a tunnel weren’t just NIMBY ravings either, Spielberg suggested. They were about preserving the downtown area’s urban renewal.

“The people who support the tunnel are the same people who raised a red flag over the mega-mall,” she said, referring to an earlier concept to drop the massive Mall of America and a wave pool onto Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive. “These people understand nuance.”

Still, other board members didn’t want fist pounding for a tunnel to translate into a death blow for the Purple Line. After all, if the feds catch a whiff of discontent among area residents, they could decide against funding, board member Victor Weissberg, of Montgomery Hills, said.

Instead, the board’s letter should recommend tunneling “to the extent that it’s feasible”, one faction suggested. Translation: If tunneling happens, it happens. And if not, no big whoop.

“I’d rather see the Purple Line built and understand that we all have to sacrifice, than not build it at all,” board member and East Silver Springer Kathy Stevens said.

A draft letter will be put to the vote when the board convenes again on Jan 12, 2009.

Photo of a Metro tunnel courtesy of Flickr user Chrisbb@prodigy.net.

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