Mohan Ismail seared thinly sliced beef tenderloin as he dodged flames shooting from the side of a red-hot wok ring.
The Singapore-raised chef was working on a recipe that reminded him of the flavors his mother once created. Ismail mixed the meat with red onions, fish sauce and lemon grass. Seconds later, he placed the almost scorched, crispy meat on a bed of watercress.
The concoction, called Shaking Beef, is part of a much larger creation being cooked up in the Calabasas test kitchen of Cheesecake Factory Inc., the restaurant chain known for its oversized portions of meat loaf and giant, gooey desserts.
This is no carbon copy. The chain is opening RockSugar Pan Asian Kitchen in the Century City mall June 19 with a menu that is 180 degrees different from what the company sells at its namesake restaurant chain and Grand Lux Cafes. And unlike the others, it will take reservations.
Ismail, whose culinary expertise was honed working for New York eateries such as Spice Market and Blue Hill, plans entrees like this beef dish and a seared salmon dressed with Indonesian chilies.
"These flavors are memories of Singapore," Ismail said.
Three years in the making, the new concept for Cheesecake opens at a less than opportune time for the restaurant industry. Sales at established Cheesecake Factory restaurants dipped almost 2% in the last quarter.
Fancy steakhouses such as Morton's and Ruth's Chris Steak House also are attracting fewer customers. Some chains are closing restaurants, convinced that they overbuilt in recent years.
Even with Cheesecake's vast experience opening restaurants and winning customers, there's no guarantee that RockSugar will be a success, analysts say.
P.F. Chang's China Bistro Inc. failed to create a chain out of its Taneko Japanese Tavern, which opened in Scottsdale, Ariz., two years ago with high expectations. Company executives claimed that Taneko would become a category-defining restaurant but are now trying to unload the tavern.
Cheesecake's chief executive, David Overton, said he was confident that Southern California's cultural comfort with Asian food, combined with the bustling Century City location, would attract a strong lunch and dinner business at RockSugar.
This is the first new concept for Cheesecake Factory since 1999, when it launched Grand Lux, an amped version of the company's founding chain.
