The first time Apoorva, a 26-year-old Fashion Marketing graduate living in Bengaluru, tried Korean food was with her best friend, and it turned out to be a significant moment of bonding for the two of them. “I had heard of the growing popularity of Korean culture, especially food, from lovers of Korean films and series, and my best friend wanted to try out a few dishes. We went out to eat together, and it has now become one of our most cherished memories,” she says. Apoorva, like many others, watched Korean television shows like Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, Let’s Eat Series, Hospital Playlist, and reality shows like Three Meals a Day, Youn’s Kitchen, and Baek Jong-won's Food Truck, which added to her curiosity about Korean cuisine, because food is central to all of these shows.
In India, there has been a steady increase in the number of people like Apoorva, who have taken a keen interest in Korean entertainment shows, popularised through OTT platforms, and seek out the food, skincare products, and makeup hacks featured in them. While trips to South Korea to immerse in the culture are an expensive affair, visiting restaurants that serve Korean cuisine has become a popular choice among fans.
Pratyush, a 32-year-old business consultant from Hyderabad, says that it was shows like Flower of Evil, Crash Landing, and Extraordinary Attorney Woo that inspired his wife and him to try Korean food. “I was not a fan of Korean and Japanese cuisine. But a few months ago, my wife and I got hooked to Korean Netflix shows and wanted to experience more of East Asian culture in any way possible. So we went on a spree of lunches exclusively to Asian restaurants in Hyderabad.” Now, the couple relish Korean cuisine at least once every month.
Food is integral to most of the narratives in Korean dramas and movies. For instance, in a popular show called Boys Over Flowers, the rich and brooding hero Gu jun Pyo (played by Lee Min Ho) meets the female protagonist Geum Jan-di’s (played by Koo Hye-sun) family, and all of them bond over making kimchi – a side made of fermented and spiced vegetables (usually cabbage), synonymous with Korean cuisine. This is a vital scene because the hero realises that he never had such opportunities to bond with his own mother.
Korean food primarily comprises stews and noodles with vegetables, meat, and seafood, while dairy remains visibly absent. Another characteristic of Korean cuisine is the varied number of side dishes that usually accompany the main dish of noodles and/or rice.
Other popular dishes include bibimbap (warm rice topped with meat, vegetables, and raw egg), tteokbokki (chewy rice cakes in a sweet chili sauce), jjigae (a hearty stew served with noodles, along with vegetables, meat, or seafood), and Korean fried chicken (regular fried chicken coated in a sweet and spicy sauce), to name a few. The meals usually accompany soju, an alcoholic beverage made with rice or sweet potatoes.
In another show titled Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo, the protagonist Kim Bok-joo (played by Lee Sung-Kyung) is a weightlifter and the daughter of a former weightlifter who now owns a chicken shop. There is an elaborate scene in the show where the protagonist teaches her friends the ultimate way to have the Korean barbeque experience so that they don’t fill up on just a few dishes. She devises a technique called ‘RMFC’ where one must first eat barbecued raw meats before trying the marinated barbecue meats. When the meat becomes a little cloying, Kim suggests that they order fried rice and finish off by slurping a cold bowl of noodles. It would be no surprise that fans would want to try out Korean barbecue after watching Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo not just to experiment with the flavours, but also to perhaps assess the effectiveness of the RMFC technique!
It is not just Korean films or shows that have pushed fans to try the cuisine. Weekly and daily vlogs of Korean content creators on YouTube have also garnered a huge fanbase, triggering sustained interest in the Korean lifestyle and food habits. For Neha (name changed), a 25-year-old PR executive from Bengaluru, vlogs, and Mukbang videos had a significant role to play in the initiation of Korean food consumption. “I discovered Korean cuisine on YouTube, way before the K-Drama spiral. I used to watch these 'What I eat in a day/week' videos, and some of the YouTube channels I frequented were run by Korean creators. I was drawn to the aesthetics of Korean cuisine.”
Mukbang is a popular type of video (usually live streamed), where a person eats a large quantity of food while speaking to their audience. Sometimes, the sounds of eating like chewing, slurping, using cutlery, and opening food packages, are recorded along with the video for ASMR (goosebumps or tingling sensory response to specific audio and visual triggers). Mukbang live streams and vlogs have a significant role to play in popularising Korean food since they focus only on food, its preparation, and consumption.
Neha is of the opinion that both Korean and Japanese cuisine is becoming popular with people who enjoy K-drama and anime because of how immersive experiences around food are in these shows, She says, “With K-dramas and even anime or Japanese shows like Alice in Borderland, regardless of the central theme, the culture of the country that the show originates from is very clear. They actually show the characters enjoying the food, not just playing with it while pondering about a crucial plot point. I feel that this, at the very least, instills a sense of curiosity in the viewers.”
The rising interest fans have taken to Korean cuisine in India draws parallels to young readers from yesteryears being introduced to ginger ale, scones, tea cakes, and Sunday roasts, among other British food, through Enid Blyton’s books, only to be disappointed that none of these delicacies would be available in India for a long time. Fortunately, for fans of Korean pop culture, the food they see on screen has materialised into tangible menus, thanks to the influence Korean soft power wields on world economies.
When compared to Indian cuisine, Korean food is vastly different in terms of flavours, courses, and ingredients used. Umami, a savoury or meaty flavour, is a key component of most Korean dishes. While Korean drama might have made Indian viewers curious about the dishes the protagonists relish, some of them were disappointed when they tried it for the first time, but later grew to enjoy it.
Apoorva notes how Korean cuisine is an acquired taste for her because she was not familiar with the flavours. But as she watched more Korean dramas and realised how food was a huge part of their culture, she began to enjoy trying Korean cuisine. “Watching the actors and actresses eat the food with so much enthusiasm, joy, and love made me want to try all the dishes that I possibly had access to,” she says.
Neha says she knew beforehand that Korean and Japanese cuisine did not use as much spices as Indians did, but sighs the food still did not meet her expectations. “I first tried Korean cuisine in 2019 when I interned at a company based in Korea. I was disappointed because I had hyped the taste up in my head for years. I was almost certain that it would taste exactly as good as it looks. However, this is entirely on me. I was just projecting my idea of taste onto Korean cuisine. I set myself up for disappointment. That being said, once I got over my initial expectations, I gave the cuisines a couple more tries and I grew to like it,” she adds.
But for some Korean culture aficionados, it was love at first bite. Twenty-eight -year-old Nandhitha liked Korean food instantly as she was a fan of the umami flavour that is predominant in most Asian cuisines. “I am generally very experimental with food and love to try new cuisines. My expectations or rather, preconceived notions about Asian cuisine is that it is meat heavy, but especially with Korean and Japanese food, those notions were challenged. I love how flavourful Korean cuisine is,” she says.
Though Korean food seems to have quite many takers, the food in these restaurants is priced slightly higher because they are still serving a niche crowd. Despite, Korean and Japanese restaurants seem to see a rise in customers. Rinchen Angchuk, the owner of Japanese and Korean restaurants in Mumbai, Goa, and Delhi is of the opinion that around 40% of the people who visit both his restaurants are interested in trying new cuisine.
“Our Japanese restaurant Kofuku, which opened in 2012, was a hit among customers. This was a sign that people are travelling and have greater exposure to foreign cuisine. In 2015, when we opened our Korean restaurant Heng Bok, we used to service mostly executives from Korea who visited Mumbai on business trips. But now, people, especially from the younger generation, are more open to trying new food items. Social media definitely plays a role in their popularity. Sometimes, we have young kids coming to our restaurant and ordering effortlessly off our menu because they are familiar with the dishes as they are seeing them in the movies and TV shows they watch,” he notes.
Apart from Korean food, Japanese cuisine is also now gathering fans. Whether it is anime centred on food like Food Wars, or other subjects like Naruto, Death Note, Dragon Ball Z, the content is almost incomplete if it does not feature steaming bowls of ramen, cakes, fruits and vegetables that glisten in the sun. Even Studio Ghibli movies like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, to name a few, have aesthetically pleasing and tempting visuals of food that have earned fans across the globe. However, Japanese cuisine is relatively more expensive than Korean cuisine, as it still serves a niche audience. But that does not deter some anime fans from treating themselves to it occasionally.
Dineshkumar, a 27-year-old software consultant working in Sweden, is of the opinion that there are more Japanese restaurants mushrooming in India’s metro cities as anime fans are looking for more immersive ways to experience Japanese culture. For him personally, it was Naruto that made him try Japanese cuisine. “In the show, the character Naruto would treat himself to a good bowl of ramen every time he achieved something and I tried to incorporate that practice in my life! Now I eat Japanese cuisine at least twice a month,” he laughs.
Revathi, who co-founded the Japanese restaurant Dahlia in Chennai, along with her Japanese business partner Yamauchi, says that being one of the first Japanese restaurants in Chennai that was opened 30 years ago, their first customers were mostly Japanese and other foreign tourists. “When we started, we did not have many Indian customers. But exposure to international culture has brought in Indian guests now. We have some customers who have grown up with the restaurant, but there are also newer customers who are here because of anime and manga. When we see Indian customers, young and old, we are happy that they are open to trying new flavours,” she says.