Home Care In Derwood, MD

Maybe this idea borders on sacrilege to you, but the first thought that went through my head when biting into the Maryland pupusa at La Brasita was this: It reminds me of crab pretzels, that balance-beam melding of Chesapeake Bay shellfish, salty stadium snack and carny food. My second thought: Why did it take so long for someone in the local Salvadoran community to invent a pupusa stuffed with blue crab, Old Bay and cheese?

The answer to that question may be more obvious than it seems. It required a second-generation Salvadoran American, born in Maryland but with deep affection for the homeland, to make the connection between the Central American street food and steamed blue crabs caked with Maryland’s beloved seasoning. David Campos was the right man at the right time.

Campos isn’t even the chef at La Brasita. His mother, Lucy Campos, handles those duties, and the division of labor here is as clear and bright as the light that pours into this corner cafe in the Red Mill Shopping Center, says his sister, co-founder Tatiana Morales. Morales has final say over the design and social media at the restaurant, which opened last year. David runs the front of the house, and Lucy manages the kitchen. Their neatly defined roles help prevent internecine battles among family members in what could quickly become a tiny war zone inside this Derwood storefront.

And yet, Morales says, each co-founder can propose ideas for other parts of the restaurant, as when David suggested that his mom give Maryland pupusas a try. It was the kind of idea that might never have occurred to Lucy. She’s a native of El Salvador, where, despite a coastline that hugs the Pacific Ocean for many miles, home cooks and street vendors alike tend to avoid seafood when packing their pupusas. Leave it to David, the American-born millennial, to break new ground. He and some friends apparently came up with the hybrid dish.

“We wanted to combine the Salvadoran roots with my Rockville, Md., upbringing, I’ve lived in Rockville my whole life, born and raised, and went to school in the same area,” he said. “Making the Maryland pupusa just combined the two cultures together.”

Combining cultures has historically been a cruel, involuntary process, often forced upon people with the working end of a rifle. The beauty of the Maryland pupusa, by contrast, is its origin story: It’s an organic creation born from an immigrant family that sees value in two separate worlds. The fusion process, however, is rarely a clean one, and the Maryland pupusa is no different. Its inventors encountered an economic conundrum as they moved from development to menu: Pupusas have long been an affordable form of energy and delight among Salvadorans, but Chesapeake blue crabs are expensive, especially this season.

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So Lucy had to make a compromise when preparing her Maryland pupusa: It doesn’t include any local blue crab. She relies on the canned alternatives, usually picked, packed and shipped from places such as Venezuela and China. Without the canned stuff, La Brasita’s Maryland pupusa could run as high as $10 for a single masa round, David says. As it is, the item already sells for $4.50 a pop, nearly two bucks more than the other pupusas on the menu.

Regardless of the blue crab compromise, you shouldn’t miss the Maryland pupusa. It’s more than a brilliant fusion dish, a marriage of Mesoamerican corn, sweet blue crab and fresh mozzarella, brought into a radiant harmony with Old Bay and hot sauce. It’s also a statement of purpose: La Brasita will not be bound by the strictures of first-generation Salvadoran restaurants, including La Brasa, the pan-Latin place that Lucy started with her husband 15 years ago in Rockville.

“We wanted to create a space where anything is possible,” Morales told me. “And what that means is that we can be creative and experimental and weird and, you know, we sort of encourage that.”

The innovations begin with Morales’s restaurant design, which affirms Salvadoran culture in a minimalist dining room that, at heart, embraces the meditative calm of sunlight and few worldly possessions. On one azure wall, Morales has painted Indigenous ruins (more Chichen Itza in the Yucatán than Tazumal in El Salvador), and on another, she has depicted a torogoz, the Salvadoran national bird, with its turquoise tail that looks like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. The music that pulsates inside this space is a mix tape, featuring the majestic sweep of tunes that have informed David’s young life, whether James Brown or Cafe Tacuba.

Against this backdrop, Lucy produces a compilation album of her own, pulling together a tight, tasty menu that draws from cuisines throughout the Americas. Her pupusas are superb, pressed thin no matter your desired filling and browned handsomely on a griddle, as if she has somehow managed to capture desire in a masa cake. The kitchen prepares tortillas to order, each pressed by hand, Salvadoran-style, into a corn-scented wrapper that swaddles your choice of filling. I’d highly recommend the cochinita, which are basically chicharrones by another name, each morsel of pork crispy on the outside and lush on the inside.

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The chef’s masitas de puerco is a dish true to its Cuban roots, the bite-size pieces of pork marinated in sour orange, then cooked in lard and olive oil. The accompanying strands of charred onions, all gnarly and bittersweet, complete the bite. The weather may not be ideal for hot soup, but don’t let that stop you from ordering the sopa de res, a luxurious broth that conceals not just chunks of beef but also soft, luscious lengths of yuca.

Lucy Campos’s finest dish may be her trucha frita, a butterflied and pan-fried piece of freshwater trout that is buttery and almost begging for a spoonful of fresh pico de gallo. The dish comes with the trout head on the side, its skull splayed open, so you can easily pick at its prized flesh. No waste, and no doubt one of the best preparations you’ll find in the area.

You can finish your meal with a chocolate tres leches, which is fine, but I’d suggest the housemade paletas instead. I polished off a passion-fruit pop one recent afternoon, allowing its tart, icy shards to cool me down before stepping back into the tropical heat. It’s a dessert, yes, but it feels more like a parting gift, from a spot that truly sweetens the Latin American dining experience in Maryland.

7206 Muncaster Mill Road, Derwood, Md., 301-569-6333; labrasita.com.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Nearest Metro: N/A.

Prices: $2 to $21 for starters, sides, snacks, tacos, burritos, chimichangas, entrees and desserts.

For reasons I don’t care to explain, I’m sitting at a stoplight on Rockville Pike, chopsticks in hand, ready to dig into my to-go order of Sichuan-style fish filets from Big Wang’s Cuisine in Derwood. Some part of me knows this is a monumentally stupid idea, even as I pop the lid off a magma-hot plastic container and poke around in the red sea of chili oil and broth for a sliver of succulent white fish.

Proud of my dexterity to pull off this feat while stuck in traffic — it may be the first time I’ve been thankful for the sleep-inducing length of the stoplights along the Pike — I pop the fish in my mouth. The flesh, coated with a microscopic layer of oil, feels lush on the tongue, a sensual pleasure that lasts mere milliseconds before the chili pepper’s heat trips the fire alarm in my brain. Before I know it, I’ve coughed the filet onto my lap, which is now ablaze, too. Where’s the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department when I need it?

My first lesson about Big Wang's is to always — always — listen to the staff when they warn you about the spice level. Even with my hard-bitten palate, which has grown impervious to a few of the hottest peppers in the known Scoville universe, I could not contain this wildfire of a dish. At least not on first bite, which is always the worst, the one that shocks your unsuspecting taste buds.

Once I land at my destination, I attack the container of Sichuan fish as if it deserves to be punished. That’s when I realize the infused chili oil and broth are more than pipe bombs. Sharp and sweet aromatics — I detect garlic, ginger, maybe even cinnamon — linger around the edges like Texas A&M students at a bonfire. My second lesson about Big Wang’s is as obvious as the first: There’s a reason this small dining room is always packed with customers who can trace a line back to China. The place cuts no corners with its execution of Sichuan dishes.

Yet Big Wang’s largely remains a mystery. Its co-owner, Bo Wang, belongs to that rare breed of restaurateur who shies from publicity. I called his place searching for him. I emailed him. I combed databases for his cell number. I came up empty on all fronts. One evening, I did (apparently) meet Bo’s father, a tall, silent type, who was hanging around the restaurant, looking like a man in charge. I asked if he was actually Bo Wang, the ghost operative behind this Sichuan spice factory. An employee answered for him. No, she said, he’s the owner’s father. No name was provided.

I can confirm one thing, though: Whether this man was Bo Wang, or his father, he was a large presence. There seems to be no irony behind Big Wang’s name.

Fortunately, the servers at Wang’s restaurant are more talkative than he is. I learned, for instance, that there are four chefs in the kitchen: two from Sichuan, one from Shanghai and the last from Shandong. But don’t look for the salty, fishy dishes from Shandong here; there are none. Sichuan fare dominates the menu, including the spicy dry hot pot, a brothless bowl that has supplanted the dip-your-own-dinner hot pot as the de rigueur Chinese communal dish.

The staff won't provide much guidance in building your dry hot pot. One overcast afternoon, some friends and I cobbled together a bowl with beef, five-spice bean curd, pork belly, lotus root, scallions, fishballs and fat clumps of enoki mushrooms, which are billed under their taxonomic genus, Flammulina. If our creation managed to incorporate the five elements of Chinese cooking — a meal should include sweet, salty, spicy, bitter and sour flavors to keep your five major organs in harmony — it was only by accident. Frankly, I thought the briny fishballs paired best with the numbing heat of the chili oil that coated each ingredient. This was fast-casual dining, Sichuan-style, far more rewarding than many build-your-own meals.

The stir-fried pig’s feet requires no culinary training to order it but demands that you use your hands to nibble the rich, sticky mass of meat, fat and tendon off the bulky trotter sections. It’s like biting gooey caramel off a bone, except this pig candy hits hot and spicy, the soul food of Sichuan. The stir-fried spicy chicken, another Sichuan specialty, doesn’t offer the same textural delights as the pig’s feet, but the bone-in pieces of bird meat possess the same forceful ma-la personality, a shock-jock assault of spice/heat (la) and eventual numbness (ma).

Shanghai fare hides in the margins of the menu. My favorite is the Shanghai-style braised pork, a platter of meltingly tender pork belly lacquered with a burgundy-colored sauce that emits the sweet, earthy aromas of five-spice powder. The bonus? The same liquid elixir can be applied to the side bowl of white rice, which plays up the sauce’s savory qualities, the sweetness banished to someplace where your palate can’t find it.

The kitchen can fumble a dish or two. The bean-curd skewer, one of many foods available on a stick, was as dry and lifeless as a fallen tree. A whole fried-and-glazed striped bass — mistakenly translated as “sweet and sour fish filet” on the menu — provided plenty of eye candy, but little else. It smacked more of fryer oil than the sweet, delicate flesh of rockfish.

Stick with the dishes beholden to chili oil, which, a waiter told me, requires a 12-hour process to reach full voice. The viscous solution ignites everything it touches, even the sliced pork in garlic sauce, a pork-belly appetizer that neglects to mention its nearly invisible glaze of Sichuan lighter fluid. The oil also coats the “lamb with spicy cumin,” which probably increased my internal temperature by 10 degrees — Celsius. But at least I didn’t cough it up in my lap.

If you go

16051 Frederick Rd., Derwood, Md. 301-977-7676.

Hours: Monday-Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Nearest Metro: Shady Grove, with a half-mile walk to the restaurant.

Prices: Soups, appetizers and skewers, $1.25-$29.95; entrees, hot pots and specials, $7.95-$38.95.

Chris Lawson defends WSSC Water's "Project Cornerstone" billing system. Managers tell WUSA9 about system flaws resulting in unexplained large customer bills.

LAUREL, Md. — Imagine getting a water bill for thousands of dollars. Then, imagine trying to get someone from the water company on the line for some answers, only to be on hold for hours. That’s what viewers in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties tell WUSA9 they’ve been dealing with for years and claim is ongoing in both emails and social media posts.

The utility acknowledges past problems with call answer rate and wait time, blaming the COVID pandemic, and adding it had been improving consistently since March 2022.

You could call Suzanne Sutton particularly water conscious. She recycles much of the water she uses in her Derwood, Maryland, home and even showers at her gym. When she got her WSSC Water bill in December 2020 after a full year of not getting her usual quarterly bill -- which was typically less than $100 -- she was shocked.

"I thought it was really going to be low," Sutton said. "It was close to $3,000."

Over the phone, WSSC Water blamed the problem on a running toilet and says Sutton hasn't made a payment since 2019. In a voice recording released by WSSC to WUSA9, Sutton said she had a toilet leak and a plumber fixed it; however, Sutton told WUSA9 that while the plumber repaired a leak, he told her he found no major problem. Sutton also told WUSA9 she hasn't paid her bill because she doesn't believe she's at fault.

Several other Maryland customers reached out to WUSA9 with similarly high unexpected water bills, totaling several hundred dollars more than expected. More have taken to social media, including a NextDoor thread with more than a100 comments from WSSC customers alleging billing problems for several years to the present day. Customers WUSA9 spoke with said the wait on the phone to get answers from WSSC Water was infuriating.

“Most people who would call up and spend an afternoon with WSSC are not lying," remarked Sutton.

Credit: Becca Knier

Suzanne Sutton recycling water at her Derwood, Maryland home.

WUSA9 collected exclusive interviews with two WSSC Water insiders who explain the possible causes for the high bills and poor customer service. Both agreed to speak to WUSA9 with their faces hidden and voices altered to avoid harm to their careers.

“The major problem with customer service is that we bought a system that was brand new to the industry, across North America," one manager said. "And so the ability to find qualified staff to actually make payment arrangements or do any type of billing is been very tough. So we're dependent on third-party consultants to help us with this task. And as you might be aware, we're moving away from third-party consultants. So bills, phone calls are not being answered. Bill modifications are not being made. It's a lot of lack of knowledge within WSSC on how we use the new billing system."

RELATED: 92,000 Maryland customers are behind on their water bill, shutoffs resume soon

Another WSSC Water manager told WUSA9 that payment plans have several issues.

"One, when we initially started resumption of turn-off services, we just didn't have staff, the technology available to assist the customer," the manager said. "When they called in for payment plans, we had long hours of wait time for customers. Additionally, the system itself was not set up to establish payment plans, because we are a quarterly bill system and the payment plans are monthly. So the customers are confused about what it is they need to pay. And additionally, you know, we've asked the customers to call us, email us as well as go online and request payment plans. But unfortunately, we just haven't had the staff to address the customer needs and payment plans. So they run the risk of their services being turned off, although they may have called or sent an email requesting a payment plan.”

Both managers said WSSC Water’s billing system, internally labeled “Project Cornerstone,” is a "failure."

"I think it starts with the billing system itself," the second manager said. "We spent again, over $100 million on a billing system that doesn't service the customer. We've talked to other organizations and they have spent a fraction of those costs, and have all the things that can assist the customer without calling into customer service."

According to WSSC Water, Project Cornerstone was a computer system activated in 2019 to allow it to “implement a new rate structure and a redesigned bill.”

RELATED: WSSC Water is owed $58.4 million from customers in Montgomery and Prince George's counties

“Project Cornerstone is a billing system that was purchased by WSSC in the former leadership to bring in some more accurate billing," the first manager explained. "There was a situation where customers were complaining that their bills were not accurate. So, WSSC had an old mainframe system. So, three, four years ago, they decided to purchase a new, more high-tech system. There was really no competition for it. It was something that wasn't even used in North America. I think our general manager wanted to be cutting edge and didn't do a lot of research. And unfortunately for us, cutting-edge new technology, no one in the industry to support it. There's a lack of resources. So, therefore, it's very hard to maintain talent and get talent to actually run the billing system. So we're still we're actually in a worse situation than we were when we were on the mainframe system.”

Credit: Becca Knier

A WSSC Water employee installs a replacement meter

Going back to call wait times, WSSC Water spokesperson Lyn Riggins wrote: “We pride ourselves on delivering exceptional customer service, but we have clearly missed the mark when it comes to our call wait times. To be completely transparent, we have never had that many delinquent customer accounts at one time, which was driving the extremely high call volumes. We know COVID-19 is responsible for the economic uncertainty many of our customers face.”

Riggins provided this chart to WUSA9, showing the utility's call answer rate and wait time had been improving consistently since March 2022:

Credit: WSSC Water

By listening to the apologies from top-level managers to the board in meetings over the course of the year, it's clear WSSC Water is aware of their past customer service problem.

"I do want to start with an apology," said WSSC Water Deputy General Manager Monica Johnson.

WSSC Water Chief of Staff Crystal Knight-Lee added her own "public apology as customer service director," while WSSC General Manager Carla Reid said she wanted to "once again apologize to our customers."

WUSA9 asked WSSC Water to have any one of these top managers sit down and explain what their own fellow managers said about flaws in their system. Multiple requests were denied.

WSSC Water added that it is willing to work with customers to reduce their bills, sometimes as much as 50%.

Credit: Becca Knier

Suzanne Sutton's home water faucet

Meanwhile, Commissioner Chris Lawson announced he was leaving the company amid accusations of a conflict of interest when choosing the Cornerstone billing system.Late Tuesday night, Lawson wrote a letter of immediate resignation obtained by WUSA9. It reads in part:

"It is true that I have a client who participates in the Cornerstone contract. When the original contract was approved, there were no vendors named at that time under the Basic Ordering Agreement. It was understood that the vendors would be selected from an approved list of approximately 27 companies, chosen by the IT department evaluation of offerors. At the point in which management requested more revenue to continue with the development of Cornerstone, it was an honest mistake not to recognize that at that point, the client was listed. I certainly didn't do so because I was going to get something in return. Last, I was informed today that a Commissioner has lodged a complaint with the State Ethics Board specifically against me. It made mention of other vendors past and present that are clients of concern. That is clearly a lie. I'm sure that if the Commissioner honestly thought that he/she would have quickly made mention of client names. Another unnecessary evil. But at least with the Ethics Board I will have an honest chance to set the record straight. Thank you again for the opportunity to serve. I wish you and the staff all the best."

Lawson declined to speak to WUSA9.

"When we talk about Cornerstone we have to talk about the relationships at WSSC," said one of the managers speaking anonymously. "Currently, we've got an active commissioner who is doing business with one of the vendors from Cornerstone and who did not disclose that information who's been approving contracts for that particular vendor. And we're aware of some of these vendors sitting on the boards of these different organizations that belong not only to the commissioner but as well as other employees who may have other businesses or spouses who may have other businesses that these particular vendors sit on the boards of these different employees of WSSC Water."

Credit: WSSC Water

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Montgomery County Fire officials are giving people the following advice on what to do if bitten by a copperhead.

(Photo: Montgomery County Fire and Rescue)

DERWOOD, Md. -- Officials are warning residents of copperhead snakes after a man was bitten by one Monday morning near Lake Needwood in the Derwood area.

The man, who was canoeing on the lake was coming ashore when the snake bit him on his foot. The bite marks appeared to be from a venomous snake bite, Montgomery County Fire officials said. This a is fairly uncommon incident, because venomous bites from copperheads are rare.

Despite the bite, officials said the man was in good condition.

Montgomery County Fire officials are giving people the following advice on what to do if bitten by a copperhead:

According to the Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, copperhead snakes are about 30 inches long and have grooved fangs that can be 0.3 inches in length. The longer the snake is the longer the fangs are.

Generally the snakes can be found in the United States from the Florida panhandle, north to Massachusetts and west to Nebraska.Copperheads can be found in rocky-forested hillside and in various wetland areas, experts say.

The snakes eat mice, small birds, lizards, other small snakes, amphibians and insects like cicadas, according to the Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute.

Experts say snakebites often come from copperheads, however the bites are in most cases never deadly. Bites frequently happen when a person accidentally steps on a snake or touches one. They camouflage well with their area.

Recent Copperhead Snake bite (Lake Needwood) If snake bitten, Immobilize bitten area & keep it lower than the heart. Get medical help. Do not attempt to drive yourself. Most of all, stay calm (to keep from pumping the poison around your system) Main thing is to get to a hospital pic.twitter.com/DWht1k8FkI

— Pete Piringer (@mcfrsPIO) July 10, 2018

This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

The Younger Sisters, Neighbor

After less than one year in business, Donte’s Boxing Gym (DBG) in Derwood has recently completed an expansion. The gym has doubled in size to accommodate its rapidly growing membership.

When Donte Brown opened the doors of Donte’s Boxing Gym on April 30, 2011, he envisioned a place where people could learn the fundamentals of boxing, get a full body workout and become part of a family he likes to refer to as DBG Nation. A seasoned member of the health and fitness community, Brown, a certified personal trainer and fitness instructor, realized his dream of owning his own gym and it has proven to be a great success.

The new section provides 1,500 additional square feet of space, doubling the size of the current gym. The expansion will allow space for a workout area with free weights, additional room for group classes and even an office for Brown. Since the start of the year, membership has flourished with at least one new client signing up each business day. “I’m looking forward to the continued growth of DBG Nation and I’m excited to see where we’ll go from here. The sky is the limit,” says Brown.

Brown, along with current members of DBG Nation, are excited about the growing popularity of the gym. "I love the sense of community at DBG. Rarely do you find a gym where everyone wants to learn, work hard and help each other, but I definitely see that here. For the first time in my life, I actually look forward to coming to the gym and working out. It's not hard for me to stay motivated because I'm always around such goal-oriented people," says DBG member Merissa Dyer.

Donte’s Boxing Gym is located at 15847 Redland Road in Derwood and may be reached by calling 301-216-2585. Learn more by visiting www.dontesboxinggym.com.

About Donte’s Boxing Gym Donte’s Boxing Gym is a place where people can have fun while learning the fundamentals of boxing. Members can exercise through boxing classes, independently or through private training, to learn the fundamentals. DBG has bridged the gap by being a boxing gym that trains fighters, as well as catering to everyday, hardworking individuals that just want to get in shape and release stress. By joining Donte’s Boxing Gym, you become part of an environment that provides professional instruction, great people and a fun, vibrant atmosphere. Donte’s Boxing Gym is a certified member of the United States Amateur Boxing organization (USA Boxing, Potomac Valley Association). DBG Nation: Join the Movement!