Redwood Bar & Grill

In the early 90's, I was working on a project with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. Helaine was a planner there and coincidentally also was a painter. We hit it off from the get go and one day she said we'd have a lunch meeting at the Redwood. Redwood? where's that? 316 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles CA 90012, 213-680-2600, www.theredwoodbar.com

Back then, it was famous for being the spot where all the staff from the LA Times and County Court Building had their power lunches; LA history. The bar was in the center of the place and they had one of those dark back rooms where you could imagine the rebuilding of Bunker Hill was originally discussed with Councilman Gilbert Lindsay and all of the private stakeholders. Lots of cigar smoke and Gin and Tonics, or not.

Anyway, the burgers where great. They had a mushroom burger, guacamole burger and hickory burger. Unfortunately, it closed and the place was vacant for awhile until the new owners came and resurrected it.

Today it's more stylish. The red vinyl upholstery has been replaced by off white leather like upholstery and it's dark in there with strategic lighting on the tables. At night, they have DJ's and last Thursday when we swung by, it rivaled the Standard crowd.

Anyway, today, we went for lunch. This was my second time there since it reopened. I wasn't that crazy about the burger last time. It was good but not what it used to be. It's still a great burger but I'm not quite over it initially closing. I'm still brooding. I'm like that. So this time, looking at the menu I was so happy to see "turkey pot pie" and our server Andy recommended it. It was so delicious. The top pie crust is crisp and flaky. The stew is creamy and hot. I burned my tongue. It's large enough to make you full but I was still hungry enough that I ate half of Jeff's fries. The fries are really good.

My other favorite experience with the Redwood was a couple of years ago when I was serving Jury Duty across the street. I went to the Redwood for lunch and had a beer. At work, you can't drink alchohol during worktime so being able to drink a beer at lunch on a workday was fun.