Playground

Playground is a seasonal restaurant that changes their menu daily focusing on ingredients that are in peak season. Playground sources their meat from sustainable and humane farms ensuring high-quality. Located in the Artist Village of Santa Ana, this restaurant is always full with diners that are passionate about food and craft beers, many of them working in the restaurant industry. Playground draws the late-night industry crowd , open until 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday.

            

Karobuta Pork B.LT. Steam Bun with shaved cabbage
Photo by Matt Barg

The restaurant focuses on small plates that are meant to share at the table. An example of the quality meat that is used is the Kurobuta pork B.L.T. Kurobuta is the holy grail of pork, similar to Kobe when pertaining to beef.

            

The octopus salad with baby potatoes, avocado mousse and red pepper puree is a refreshing movement towards spring.

The surprisingly delicious octopus salad
Photo by Matt Barg

 

The chef at Playground puts on a daily ramen dish in his quest for perfection of the dish. “I love ramen and eat it weekly,” Mina Sacramento said. “You can’t go wrong with pork belly on anything. The ramen was flavored strongly with shoyu. Shoyu is a dark, rich flavored soy sauce. 

Shoyu ramen with seared pork belly, thinly sliced pork tenderloin and  a hard boiled egg
Photo by Matt Barg

Honda Ya

Honda Ya's relaxed seating and welcoming environment is consistent, even on busy nights.

Photo by Izakayahondayda.com

 

Izakaya Honda Ya is an unpretentious, traditional Japanese restaurant on El Camino Real in Tustin. Izakaya in Japanese means “a place to eat and drink, sitting down, comfortably,” which is a perfect description of the restaurant that is covered with Japanese décor and artwork. The menu is composed of multiple sections like sushi, sashimi, grilled and stewed dishes, tempura, rice balls, soba, udon and ramen. Honda Ya Menu.

The Yakisoba with pan fried chow mein, pork and shaved bonito served in sizzling, ironlad dish.
 Photo by Matt Barg




The deceiving delicious Stinky Roll with seared albacore on a spicy tuna roll topped with garlic butter.

Photo by Matt Barg

 

 

The yakitori portion of the menu is where diners get adventurous by ordering dishes like chicken hearts and cartilage, quail eggs and beef tongue. Yakitori is skewered meats and vegetables grilled over coals.  But the real exciting part of the yakitori menu is the bacon wrapped section. The consistent favorite of diners is the bacon wrapped baby scallops. Jack Anderson, a patron of Honda Ya, said, “Every time I come here, I wish I ordered more. I could seriously eat those scallops all night.”
 

The infamous bacon-wrapped scallops
Photo by Matt Barg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bacon-wrapped zucchini off the Yakitori grill
Photo by Matt Barg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It works well for people in the industry,” Mina Sacramento, fromagerie and cook, said referencing the restaurant industry. “Stays open late and the food is reasonably priced, and quick and tasty. I like the shishito peppers with miso.”  

 

 

Lola Gaspar

The welcoming patio and entrance to Lola Gaspar
Photo by Lolagaspar.com

Lola Gaspar is a dimly lit restaurant focused on small plates with Latin and European influences located in Santa Ana’s Artist Village. Lola Gaspar prides themselves on using local ingredients and creating dishes from scratch, like their house-made mozzarella that is used on flatbreads.

Lola Gaspar offers a “tacos al a Carte” section of the menu. One of the dishes offered is the beef cheek taquitos topped with sour cream, queso fresco and served with their house-made hot sauce. Unfortunately, the beef cheek inside the taquitos is incredibly fatty. Diner Courtney Fenn said, “There was more fat than meat inside the taquito,” after she ate one of the nearly inedible taquitos and did not attempt to eat the other.

         

Beef Cheek Taquitos that are visually more appealing than they actually taste
Photo by Matt Barg

Another option on the “tacos al a Carte” menu is the rib eye and chorizo taco wrapped in a flour tortilla, and served again with their house-made hot sauce. “This was the highlight of the dinner,” Fenn said with a look a disappointment.

Rib Eye and Chorizo Tacos wrapped in flour tortillas
Photo by Matt Barg

 

On the European-side of Lola Gaspar offers duck confit mac n’ cheese with a bread crumb gratin. Unfortunately, the classicly delicious duck confit was overcooked to the point where it was mush. 

Mac n' Cheese with overcooked duck confit
Photo by Matt Barg