Bob Okura isn’t a household name, but the foods that he’s created are known by millions. As the chef for the Cheesecake Factory, Bob is responsible for developing “cravable” — as he calls them — menu items for their up-scale casual dining menu.
I met Bob a few years ago on a food professionals’ trip to Chile, where we traveled around the country, learning both about its cuisine and US exports. Everyone on that trip had a special bond, as our flights departed Santiago toward the US, a few minutes before midnight on February 26, 2010, a few hours before the devastating earthquake.
I thought of Bob recently, and reached out to him to get his responses to my Guest Foodie questions.
Which food product or gadget would you never give up? WATER. It’s the only one that is not replaceable. You use it to wash the dirt off of root vegetables or to prepare stocks for sauces…to clean utensils that were used to cook the other food items.
Of course there’s always the minor detail that without water we’d die…:-)
What do you like to serve when you entertain? A variety of “tapas” forna casual brunch or mid-day gathering. I emphasize marinated fruits and vegetables; pickled pineapple is a real crowd pleaser. “Charcuterie” and hand selected cheeses. Simple plates allows me more time with my guests. At dinner parties I’d add Japanese “izakaya” style dishes, generally served at “room temperature.” Most of the work can be done ahead so it’s a win-win culinary game plan.
Describe your “last meal?” Easy…Meatloaf with a slightly course texture and not too pasty with 
mushroom gravy, creamy mashed potatoes and buttered peas, carrots and corn. A slice of deep-dish apple pie (not warmed) with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side (not on top because it will ruin the flaky crust).
What food is your secret guilty pleasure? Ice cream. SPUMONI is my all-time favorite.
What is your go-to neighborhood restaurant? A tiny little Japanese restaurant called Sagami (3850 Barranca Pkwy, Irvine, CA 92606). Probably less than 15 tables with a small sushi bar, the place is always crowded. The chef is a lady who is there in the kitchen every day from the time they open the doors to the time they lock the place up. Her menu features authentic specialty dishes from the city of Nagoya, Japan. Her spicy soy-ginger chicken wings as good or better than any over there.
What is one food product most people don’t know about, but should? I would say that it isn’t so much that most people don’t “know about it” because they certainly do. It’s more about the fact that most people don’t fully understand how this ingredient can be used in so many different types of recipes (both hot and cold).
Soy sauce.
It is said to be a key contributor to “umami” and NOT just with Asian foods. A drop or two in a vinaigrette, stew, pasta sauce, BBQ glaze and so much more can become the difference between an ordinary dish and an extraordinary masterpiece. I was preparing the classic Cacio e Pepe (if you’re familiar with this recipe there’s really not much to it other than fresh pasta, great cheese, freshly ground black pepper, some olive oil and/or butter), I added a tiny drop of soy sauce which was totally invisible and didn’t change how the dish looked in any way, but OMG did it totally take all of the natural flavors already in the dish and heighten their deliciousness ten times over.
Describe your worst kitchen disaster and how (if possible) you saved it: While the sous chef in the banquet kitchen of a VERY large hotel/casino in Nevada, we were serving about 1020, our usual prime rib dinner. Experience should have told me that there was something odd about that number. There was, the correct number of guests was 1200. We immediately pulled food products from the other hotel outlets. That and team support allowed us to serve our entire party properly without ever knowing what had happened.
– bonnie
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