Eatery - The Playground (CA) Revisited

220 E 4th St, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Pricing - $$/$$$ | Dining - Casual | Cuisine - American, Tapas

[You can read the first review here.] Twice in one month? Well why not? The food's great as is the service; also, you can't really beat the atmosphere for some casual but still upscale food adventuring. I had a desire to say my farewell to foie with a last dinner before the ban took place. My first thought was to head to The Playground with some friends to hopefully get some of their amazing toast. Unfortunately, it wasn't there but there were other amazing dishes to sate our craving. I had some Bootlegger's Doggery Brown on tap to complement my meal - a nice smooth brown ale.

The first to come out was the foie gras, Eleven Madison Park style, with cactus pear, clementine, and pistachio. Imagine this delicious plate of cold foie gras that easily melted as soon as it was placed on some warm toast. It had a sweetness to it from the garnishes on top but a creamy, smooth fattiness typical of the goose liver itself. A delicious start but just the start to what the rest of the evening held.

Our favorite dish by far was the 2 ounces of foie gras "PB&J" which was really an indulgent, nostalgic meal. I mean, hey, if I had to have PB&J every day for lunch, I'd like it this way. It was the best way I've had foie gras before. Seared slightly atop a thick slice of buttered toast, the foie gras was smothered in sweet thick jam and sided by not peanut butter but cookie butter. If you have never had cookie butter before, you are missing out on the fragrant, speculoos deviation. Can you imagine the creaminess of foie gras paired with a cinnamony, brown sugary spread? Add in some sweet jam and buttery crunch - now multiply that imagined greatness by 1000. I believe we all closed our eyes in bliss as we had our share.

We saved some of that PB&J to finish our meal at the very end, and it was a good thing we did. Our next dish was the albacore belly tataki, a generous helping of three pieces of belly with fresh vegetables (tomatoes, cucumber, etc) in a tangy sesame oil-like sauce. The fish was quite delicate and an interesting mix between cooked and uncooked. However, it was hard to really like this after the foie gras dish prior.

So the evening seemed almost over and our wallets happier than expected but my friend and I started eyeing the 6 oz. foie gras "burger." That sounds ridiculously unhealthy right? With a $50 price tag, it also seemed a bit over the top...but hey, foie gras was about to be banned. We agreed to split the cost and bit the bullet - a resplendent foie gras burger was ours! A seared 6 oz. foie gras patty was the meat of the enormous burger that came out. Shredded lettuce and thousand island-like sauce (I totally thought of In-N-Out) with a buttery bun were on the top and bottom of the foie gras. We cut it three ways and indulged like we'd never indulged before. Fatty, creamy, and pure, it was fabulous. I'm so glad we decided to come to the Playground to give our farewell to foie.