Attention Marylanders

[hkellick]

OK, this is a call out to those of you who read my LJ and live in or have lived in Maryland.

K and I are going off to Silver Spring this weekend, to look at the city and possibly a couple of apartments.

I'm looking for stories, good and bad, about Silver Spring. Tell me what you know. Good places? Bad places? Good apartments? Bad apartments?

I need to know what the apartment adverts aren't telling me.

Thank you in advance!

Comments

[chickenhat.livejournal.com]

Only that the beltway traffic between College Park and Rockville sucks, but you probably knew that already.

Not sure I can tell you about different apartments, because I've tended to stay near College Park. Food and movie-wise you'll be set, and metro access is much friendlier towards Silver Spring and Bethesda (fewer transfers because it'll be on the red line). Most of the best and more ethnic resturants are out there.

[lite.livejournal.com]

Can you suggest some of your favorite ethnic restaurants? :)

Also, where does the Traffic on the Beltway NOT suck?

[chickenhat.livejournal.com]

That's the weird part, I usually just get in the center of things and follow my nose. There's thai food,there's a BJ's Mongolian BBQ, there's a Green Field Churrascaria Brazilian BBQ north of the beltway on 355 (also called "Meatboys"). There's plenty of hole-in-the-wall places for take-out. My favorite Indian place is Delhi Dhaba, and for mexican people like California Tortilla. Matuba for sushi, and...

Um, here, try the Zagat neighborhood listing and see if there's anything that sends you. You can search by location or cuisine.

http://www.zagat.com/Browse/Results.asp
VID=1&PID=1&LID=7&LSID=25574&BRW=21&NDPH=Bethesda%2FChevy+Chase

http://www.zagat.com/Browse/Results.asp?VID=1&PID=1&LID=7&SBY=11&PG=1&BRW=21&LSID=25597&NDPH=Rockville/White+Flint

Or... follow your nose...

[nesme.livejournal.com]

I work in Downtown Silver Spring. There's several chain restaurants (Ruby Tuesdays, Eggspectations, Chipotle, Baja Fresh, Panera Bread, Maccaroni Grill) as well as a good Tex Mex place (Austin Grill) and a Middle Eastern place (Lebonese Taverna). There's new things coming in all the time due to the kind of urban renewal going on here. We're expecting Thai, Pho and Japanese/Chinese to be coming in soon. If you are willing to travel to Wheaton there's a Scottish Pub called The Royal Mile.

There's a nice Giant Food and a Whole Food Market in the downtown area. There's several shops, a Borders, Curves, Gold's Gym and two movie theaters. The mall stinks, though.

Things do get a little rough downtown at night. Evidently some of the DC gangs meet at the mall. The Billiards place I frequent hasn't shown any signs of roughness, but I still have someone walk me to my car. I've never heard any gunshots or seen any crime myself, but one of the guys that works here got robbed at gunpoint a month ago about two blocks from work. He walks to and from work every day, though, and that's the only problem he's had.

[lite.livejournal.com]

Hello completely random person!
Heh.

I'm not really surprised that downtown gets rough at night. D.C. is a huge city with a lot of people and they tend to conglomerate in downtown sorts of places.

I recognize some of those chain restaurants: Ruby Tuesday, Maccaroni Grill and Chipotle.. but I have no idea what Eggspectations, Baja Fresh and Panera Bread are.
Tex Mex sounds cool for me. Dunno about the girlfriend, sadly.

As far as malls go, I usually go to Laurel (it's close to work) or, if Laurel doesn't work, we sometimes go to Arundel Mills. Moving near a sucky mall is not the end all, assuming we can find a BETTER area (Hyattsville sucks: too much poverty.)

I don't know Silver Spring much at all which is why I asked for help.

This got long :)

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

If it helps any, I sent techs there a lot. I can't remember if they are mostly commercial or mostly residential techs.. but I generally figure something is a decent neighborhood if an alarm company has a sizeable presence there. (Not always foolproof, but it's something to go on when you have nothing else.)

[phoenixsong]

Private residences or apartment buildings/office suites, or both?

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

Seeing as if I don't know if they've been commercial or residential, I can't really break it down into more specifics. :) Really, I just recognized the name, which means I've probably seen it a lot. I take no less than 240ish calls every day, so if a particular place stands out it either means it has relevance or gets mentioned a lot. (Or it just has a strange name.)