Well, Deb and I were in town this afternoon and decided to try the Redwood Grill on Lacewood at the Future Inn(was recommended by a guy I work with).
Initial impression of the restaurant was good... clean, modern design with ample seating (not
too close together, Greg...
)
The menu selections were getting me excited as they offered many dishes that were unique and sounded quite appetizing.
We started with the bruchetta which was a beautiful mixture of tomatoes, feta cheese, basil and probably other stuff
(I forgot exactly what the menu said
) This came piled on six rounds of french bagette. The flavour was fantastic, however trying to eat these mounds of tomatoey goodness was challenging, to say the least. Deb finally figured out that cutting the little buggers in half enabled them to be consumed without losing half the topping.
Next was the entree... I had the voodoo chicken sandwich with roasted potatoe wedges while Deb had the oriental chicken salad that came in a crispy tortilla bowl. The first thing that I noticed upon receiving my sandwich was that the chicken breast was waaay overcooked. I mentioned this to the waitress but after trying a bite and finding it still edible, I told her it was ok (I honestly didn't want to wait for another one to be made.) It was basically a chicken breast coated with cajun spice, grill and then topped with banana peppers, tomatoe and I believe swiss cheese. It also had a mayo blend sauce. Overall inpression was that it sounded better than it tasted. Maybe it was the semi dryness of the chicken, who knows.
Deb's salad was HUGE and consisted of greens, cucumber, julienned carrot, manderin orange slices and slices of cold sesame chicken. The dressing was a honey mustard. Deb really enjoyed the salad (although she gave me the lions share of chicken). The edible bowl was good as it seemed to be a whole wheat or flax seed tortilla instead of just a plain flour one. My impression of the salad was that it was missing something and should have had more zing to it.
For desert, we split a piece of their homemade chocolate coconut cheesecake. It was very good but then again, when was the last time anyone had a bad cheescake...
The rest of the desert menu looked fabulous with many unique homemade creations.
Our waitress was the biggest disappointment as she seemed to be always trying to disengage from us and wasn't as friendly as we are used to (my wife is very chatty and we normally have great engagement with most wait staff)
Our final tally for the meal was $39 which included a Pepsi for Deb and a coffee for me. Not outrageous considering we had an appetizer as well as desert but we have had the same quality or better for much less.
Because of the waitress issue and the somewaht dry chicken sandwich I would give the overall experience a 6 out of 10. Normally this would prevent me from recommending a restaurant, however, the menu did hold alot of promise (especially their pasta dishes) and the staff issue would probably not be an issue for others.
I hope someone else will check this place out as I'm curious as to what others think of it....
Redwood Grill
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