This brother-and-sister concept wows with its menu of approachable food and drinks that are anything but ordinary.
It’s listed on the menu as bone marrow onigiri, and the order comes with two beautifully constructed culinary gifts. Little triangles of sticky rice are lightly drizzled with tare sauce and placed at the folds of two long strips of nori. Dollops of whipped bone marrow rest atop the rice. And on top of that are little scoops of trout roe and finely chopped chives, each adding a splash of color and more flavor.
The twin packages look so pretty. But I’m not normally a big fan of bone marrow, so I wait for my husband to give it a taste. He sinks his teeth into one and says, affirmatively, “It’s good. It’s really good.” And he’s right. A bite delivers a mouthful of tastes and textures. First there’s the chewy crunch and umami notes of the nori, then the sticky-softness and sweet hints of the rice and tare. The silky, rich, savory profile of the bone marrow comes next, followed by a burst of salty-sweetness from the trout roe and grassy notes of the chives. There’s a lot going on in such a small package, perfect for practicing mindful eating because you’ll want to enjoy every single element.
The same can be said for almost every dish at Sonder DTSA, a cool, cozy spot along North Spurgeon Street in Santa Ana. A venture by siblings Diane and Lamson Nguyen, it opened this past October, right next door to Lamson’s first restaurant, Kaizen Shabu, which has been in operation since 2018. When the adjacent space became available, it presented the perfect opportunity for the siblings to team up. To execute their dream on the culinary side, they tapped Nate Overstreet, an accomplished executive chef who was behind Anaheim Packing House’s Wheat & Sons butcher and rotisserie, and San Clemente’s Parlor (which made Orange Coast’s list of Best New Restaurants last year), among other dining spots in O.C. and beyond. He’s joined in the kitchen by Ashly Amador.
Although the menu changes with the season, you’ll see approachable offerings like a little gem salad, baby beets, skewered hanger steak and scallops, chicken wings, and a bone-in beef short rib, alongside more exotic-sounding dishes such as pork belly and escargot fried rice, and blue crab conserva with tarragon, Korean chili, olive oil, and blue corn sourdough. But even those aforementioned approachable dishes have unique twists. The scallops, for example, are seasoned and seared with crushed Sichuan chili, which forms a delicious red crust on the surface of three plump rounds. Those are then plated in a luscious pool of Sichuan chili sauce. Shrimp brown butter gives the hanger steak extra oomph. And the beets are charred, giving them a smokey flavor and crisp exterior. They arrive in a bowl atop a mixture of fresh wasabi and crème fraîche, with bits of toasted garlic and a drizzle of nori vinaigrette. Another winner: the purple Okinawan sweet potato, which is mashed and mixed with beef tallow, then garnished with egg yolk “bottarga,” lemon, and pickled sea beans. “I’d come back just for those beets and the sweet potato,” says my husband, Art, who typically doesn’t care for either of those root vegetables…