Microsoft RedWest Cafe

This review is for the Microsofties and for those who know them.
The RedWest Café which is located in building RedWest F underwent some renovations earlier this year to upgrade the café. It recently reopened and I visited this café for the first time today. Like Xander S. mentions, it looks like a ski lodge on the outside and is very cosy inside. It is one of the more open and pretty looking MS cafes that I have visited.
If you are unfamiliar with MS cafes, there are a number of food stations in each location. This one has a salad bar, a burger place, a grilling station, a chef’s special area and ethnic cuisine to name a few of the options. There are also additional eateries on the second floor of the café offering individual size pizzas and coffee shop fare.
I ended up getting some good Mediterranean fare here from the ethnic station. They apparently rotate cuisines at this location daily, so you can expect to find something new to try. I like that everything is not the same everyday. That would get boring in a hurry.
The drink selection here has also been spruced up. In addition to the ubiquitous soda fridges, they have a selection of flavored waters (cucumber/​orange/​lemon) and iced tea. Not to mention those cool Coca-​Cola Freestyle machines. Who knew there was such a thing as flavored Dasani water?
Overall, I really like this café. The café design is nice and the food selection is better than most of the other ones that I have visited.

First off, I am amazed that Microsoft cafeterias are on Unilocal.I mean, what the heck? Then again, given that they serve upwards of 50,000 people in Redmond (FTEs and vendors) and that the campus resembles a city more than a corporate enclave, I guess it makes sense.
That said, onto the RedWest Café (RedWest-​F), or more affectionately known as the Ski Lodge! The exterior architecture is beautiful as well; I never knew wood, glass and angled steel could look nice; clearly it wasn’t designed simply to be utilitarian. I remember when I first walked it during the summer, the huge windows overlooking the pond and waterfalls lend to a gorgeous view; hands down the best ground-​level café on campus! Suits the Redmond-​West campus well, which itself is like an arboretum in the summer.
The interior has the ambiance of a private lodge (which I guess it is), and serve multiple purposes, besides food, I’ve seen it host parties, intern events, and broadcast company-​wide events.
The food is all-​right; with a much better selection than Café 117, but as Elena says, it doesn’t compare to the Commons. But certainly, it’s more than good enough, and being in RedWest, how can one complain?

This used to be one of the best Microsoft cafes; however, since the introduction of the Commons, this one doesn’t compare as well. In general, there’s good choice in food. There’s a sandwich & salad bar, soups, pizza, burgers, Indian, Mexican, American, sushi, Thai, stir fry food and more. The quality is also pretty decent, but nothing special. For the most part the produce is fresh, except red pepper at the salad bar (for some reason). I also find that some of the soups and American-​type food
Another one of its selling points is that it actually closes later than most Microsoft cafes, including the Commons. It technically closes at 6:30pm, but the staff usually start packing up around 6.
One thing I’m not impressed with is breakfast. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I live in Seattle and am minutes away from awesome cafes to go to for pastries and good coffee for breakfast. The food and drinks at the Red-​W café for breakfast just doesn’t compare.

Redwest Café is definitely one of the best cafeterias Microsoft has to offer, especially if one ignores the overpriced hybrid mall colossus known as «The Commons» as I do.
The bevy of food options include:
— Mexican courtesy of Ooba Tooba
— (Americanized) Indian courtesy of Shamiana
— Cheap soups courtesy of Au Bön Pain (find me here)
— A stocked and varied salad and sandwich bar by the pound
— Grilled and fried American standards
— Eurest’s unremarkable attempts at stir-​fry, pasta and pizza
— Medium-​end made-​to-​order hot and cold deli sandwiches
— Supermarket-​grade sushi
— A Starbucks coffee bar
Besides variety of entrees, Redwest also tends to be better equipped — more fixings ranging from cilantro to Sriracha. I do miss the vegetarian chili being on hand on a regular basis (which is probably the best item for price and taste, especially with the assistance of some of the salad bar items like the shredded cheese, onions and the aforementioned condiments) from other cafeterias, but it’s a tolerable trade-​off.
I don’t get unbearably tired of eating lunch here every work day, which is the best testament I can give. However, after all of that, it’s… still a cafeteria Microsoft has to offer, leading to the need for an occasional off-​campus lunch trip to maintain taste.

This is the best of the MS cafeteria’s I’ve found. For lunch, you’ve got:
Stir-​fry, mongolian style (i.e. you select from your favorite veggies, they cook it with meat/​tofu and sauce)
Indian food from Shamiana’s
Mexican food from Ooba’s
Freshly made sushi
Hot fare, including half-​chickens and meats, along with a selection of 6 – 8 veggies
… plus the usual pizza, burgers, salad bar, etc.
Breakfast is OK, though you never know what they’ll have. Sometimes hashbrowns, sometimes biscuits and gravy… the closest to a standard is corned beef hash. It is very cheap, though.

lots of bland choices. breakfast is satisfying, and lunch is a king’s bounty of theoretically good, but poorly executed dishes. everything is a hussied up excuse for world cuisine with few reliable staples. plus i found a pube in my indian food once. i can only hope it was mine, and somehow it made into my lamb vindaloo without me knowing. despite all the bitching, i get the feeling that i’ll probably be back.