Dookki's tteokbokki among other dishes available at the brand's restaurants / Courtesy of Dareun

SEONGNAM, Gyeonggi Province — Tteokbokki, a rice cake dish simmered in red-hot pepper paste, was at first notorious for its chewy texture that confused non-Koreans. Some disgruntled consumers complained how they were supposed to eat something with the consistency of a tire.

Dareun Chief Marketing Officer and Dookki Founder Kim Kwan-hoon / Courtesy of Dareun

That was the reality for what many Koreans consider a comfort food and one of the most representative street foods here. Tteokbokki thus raises a critical question: if it is so deeply rooted in Korean society and achieved transgenerational fame, how does it fare abroad?

Kim Kwan-hoon, chief marketing officer at Dareun which operates tteokbokki franchise restaurant brand Dookki here and outside Korea, understood the challenge. His answer was to add grandeur to the food, camouflaging the problematic mouthfeel with culinary ideas and presenting a dining experience so that the complaint becomes an overstatement.

“Tteokbokki has been my comfort food since I was a kid. But to foreigners, serving it as street food is a no-no. Nine out of 10 Westerners found rice cakes very difficult to eat, unsure when to stop chewing and swallow. To get to them, it should instead be a proper meal in an upscale restaurant quality. I kept that in mind before I founded the brand in 2014,” Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times at Dareun’s office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.

Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Song Mi-ryung, right, visits a Dookki restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 22. Courtesy of Dareun

In addition to operating 245 Dookki restaurants in Korea, Kim has expanded the brand overseas, with 162 outlets in Vietnam, 11 in Thailand, nine in Taiwan and three each in the United States and Australia, as well as locations in six other countries. All overseas stores are operated by local partners under master franchise agreements with Dareun. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Dookki had the largest international presence among Korean tteokbokki brands as of February. During a visit to Vietnam in April, Agriculture Minister Song Mi-ryung also took the time to visit a Dookki restaurant in Hanoi.

What enabled Dookki's rapid global expansion was its ability to transform tteokbokki from a simple street food into a distinctive dining experience. Rather than serving a single plate of tteokbokki, the brand offers a family restaurant concept in which the street food delicacy is elevated to a full meal through the use of locally sourced ingredients and side dishes tailored to local tastes. The restaurants also operate on a self-service, all-you-can-eat model, a format that has proven particularly popular among consumers in overseas markets.

“The only way for tteokbokki to take a friendly approach to local consumers was being cooked in a fashion of ‘instant tteokbokki,’” said Kim, referring to a shabu-shabu-like cooking style which allows diners to put various ingredients into a boiling pot.

Source: Korea Times News