Thats what i thought at first lmao

This would have saved me a lot of stress and tears if they had done this several years ago lol

I'm biased because I grew up there but I really do have a soft spot for the area

Yeah the LA mart vibes are great lol

Lidl is my go to for certain american food stuff but I really appreciate la mart's prices and selection for everything else

The oakland mills village center is maybe the best in columbia. LA mart has a great selection of food for prices that are waaay lower than any of the “american” chains around here (or even h-mart and lotte), and in general the village center seems like its kinda on the upswing, with more stores opening up in the area over the past few years. Currently theres a salvadoran restaurant thats going to open soon, and a jamaican food truck that comes by on sundays.

Pizzaman also has really good pizza and south asian food so theres a lot of variety.

It sounds like environmental determinism with a fresh coat of paint tbh

In a decade every time it dusts snow we'll have a full on meltdown like georgia or texas

there's a pretty good chinese restaurant called "pepper house" off of rt 40 in ellicott city, they have some nice sichuan style cuisine there

every place i mentioned is somewhere i went to, and liked. The way I find them is usually just getting in the mood for something and looking up "[blank] food columbia", or sometimes I just drive past a place and go "that looks interesting, i should go try it sometime". If you want a staggering amount of really delicious and varied asian restaurants I highly recommend literally just driving down rt 40, theres a toooon of places tucked into random strip malls or shopping centers.

Also the main reason these places dont do marketing is because they dont make that much money and the owners often dont speak english very well, but if you look for them they all have some type of website at least.

The best food for both price and quality that you can find in howard county is generally gonna be the tiny ass immigrant run places. Go to Manila mart, Tigi's ethiopian, any of the korean/chinese restaurants on rt 40 (or just go to the food court in lotte if you're lazy), check out the salvadoran and mexican places all up and down rt 1 (i highly recommend los primos taqueria), try grille chick'n pollo in the hickory ridge village center, or nari sushi in the kings contrivance village center.

I think these lists tend to skew way too hard towards euro-american fine dining type restaurants

Columbia is really walkeable which isnt necessarily something you could say about ellicott city

I second all the korean-french bakeries, they're absolutely delightful

Well that makes sense right? Otherwise you'd basically just remove pensions altogether

yeah thats where a lot of the "moderates" are who's main issues is being against school redistricting and all the other NIMBY stuff

Yeah i did, small world isn't it?

When I was 17 and in a young democrats club at my high school we attended a very contentious protest around whether or not the county would become a sanctuary and there were a ton of activists coming out, both for and against.

Generally activism happens on the county level rather than city because columbia isnt actually incorporated. I'd say if you're looking for progressive folks to organize with and stuff look for the unitarian churches.

Columbia itself is mostly split between the "moderates" who don't like public housing and don't want their school districts to be connected to them, and the progressives who are fine with it. The older areas like oakland mills, long reach, owen brown etc will generally have more progressives while the newer places like river hill will have more "moderates". Generally the republicans and whatnot are in western hoco and you wont see many unless you go out to clarksville and beyond

Not mexican but there is a really good ethiopian restaurant in ellicott city that you definitely have to try. There are tons of dishes that are already traditionally vegan or vegetarian

LA mart, its a local chain that focuses on international foods (mostly asian and latin american) so not only are there a lot of good brands and options, but the prices are much cheaper compared to many other grocery stores in the area. Especially for produce and raw ingredients.

I kinda don't mind if people think that. Keeps some of the weirdos away

Yeah they really aggressively spread their plays which are basically anti-chinese propaganda

I had my senior prom at the aquarium it was great

Stevens forest is really nice, one of the most walkable areas in columbia and the best grocery store out of all the village centers

Go to an indian or ethiopian restaurant. You could walk into either one and order vegetarian dishes that would make even a meat eater satisfied

> tapping into that sentiment and fear stoking

If its a message that taps into “racist undertones” then its a dogwhistle