TRUST at Playground - Santa Ana, CA

Dinner - Saturday, October 12, 2013

Santa Ana always struck me as "that place between San Diego and Los Angeles". Indeed, I would've never thought about making a trip there if we hadn't been running a race in nearby Long Beach. Some restaurant hunting yielded a series of interesting blog posts about a restaurant called Playground in downtown Santa Ana. Further investigation showed that they were running a small dinner series called TRUST, a tasting menu at their chef's counter (interestingly, in a space separate from the main restaurant).

TRUST is billed as a refined experience, where the kitchen is able to perfect dishes from the more ad-lib menu in the main restaurant, while also focusing on better ingredients and a more cohesive narrative. As it turns out, it was still a huge mishmash, but our dinner was engaging and quite a lot of fun.