Redwood Restaurant and Bar

This bar/restaurant is perfectly situated. The food is good and they have a big selection of drinks. The only drawback is the price of these drinks, too high in my opinion but maybe it's just D.C area...

I used to really like this place. Regularly dined here with my family, but for a variety of reasons, had not been at this restaurant for about a year until our recent experience (this past Sunday November 15, 2004). I have to say it was pretty awful. The waiter was pretty marginal and, worse, our food was really poorly prepared or used bad ingredients. And I'm not talking about 1 entree, but all 3 were pretty bad. My wife hardly touched her fish and it did look terrible. She said it was pretty inedible, not that anyone at the restaurant questioned why she only ate a couple of bites of her entree. My daughter's pasta didn't look good and she said it was really marginal, and the steak in my rather oddly prepared steak salad was tough. It's unfortunate, but we'll probably never go again. Since the restaurant was mostly empty, I think we're not the first to recognize that something is going wrong here.

We went today for the Father's Day brunch buffet. Food was generally okay, but overpriced at $30/person. They had made-to order omlettes and a decent selection of hot and cold foods, which included smoked salmon and roast beef if you were upon the early arrivals. They ran out of smoked salmon within about an hour of when the buffet opened, and the roast beef didn't look far behind. We've eaten here other times and their outdoor seating area can't be beat, but I would definitely not come here again for the buffet.

Standard American restaurant food with a great selection of drinks. I went with the Caesar salad and cheese burger, which were both decent. Service was fairly slow, despite how empty this massive restaurant was. It also seemed like a different staff member performed each service, like refilling water, taking orders, bringing out food, bringing out drinks, and bussing. Odd. Worth a visit for the indoor/outdoor feel of some of the tables, but not worth a special trip to eat or drink.

Went for Sunday brunch. Everything was ok, but not great. The upholstered benches were torn and soiled. The glass throughout the restaurant was smudged. The packets of sugar had been damp and were now dried and clumpy. The napkins left lint all over our clothes. The food on the buffet was fair but nothing stood out. The staff was friendly but we probably will not return.

I truly love Redwood and don't come here enough. The staff is friendly, the food is delicious, they always have new and interesting cocktails on the menu, and despite its open atmosphere, the place always manages to feel intimate. It's a true gem during the spring and autumn....A leisurely lunch with the windows open, people-watching on Bethesda Row! And the 2-3 course lunch menu is wonderful and they specify that they try to be brisk during weekdays lunches, for the business set, but if you just tell your waiter that you aren't in a rush, it's truly a relaxing and indulgent experience.

First impression was that I was over-dressed for the classy ambiance of the indoor/outdoor dining area, in fact this place got two stars for looking cool. I ordered the burger along with another guy at the table, my fiance ordered the pork tenderloin. This was of course after the waitress was MIA and we thought we might have to trade 5 Taliban prisoners to get our order in. The food took painfully long for a pretty dead night and when it finally came we realized why. They had to spend an extra 30 minutes turning my "medium done" burger into a hockey puck. I have never tasted the Sahara desert but I'm pretty sure it would have more flavor than that chunk of gristle I wrestled through, the other guy felt similarly about his order. My fiance's pork was an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of pieces of old pork, they were dry and earthy, may have been fossilized prehistoric boar. We paid money to eat dirt. Don't do it. Fries were OK I guess.

I met a friend at the bar and had some great wine. Highly recommend the Martin Ray Pinot Noir. Wasn't as inspired by the Shiraz but it worked with my entree. For dinner I ordered the flat iron steak done medium rare and it was cooked to perfection (at last). I substituted the brussels sprouts for the fries for $2 up charge and they were good but a little bit on the greasy side. Staff were nice. I recommend parking underneath the restaurant there is a parking garage that you enter on Elm St that is next to the Lebanese taverna.