Head to Mazgaon for Korean street fare TODAY

Food curator Preet Sanghvi tries hotteok at Myeongdong Night Market in Seoul

For an entire day tomorrow, a neighbourhood in Mazgaon will turn into a mini avatar of Seoul. Taking centrestage at the day-long K-Wave Festival are K-pop artistes Suho and Hyolyn, and an exhaustive, cutesy yet lip-smacking food curation, inspired by city-based Preet Sanghvi's recent food trip to South Korea.

Fatcarons or Korean macarons

"Food plays as important a role as the artistes and events to make a festival successful," Sanghvi shares. The founder of food curating service, Gourmet Tales, has onboarded city-based restaurants and K-food ventures, to bring alive the festival with flavours she traces back to the streets of Korea. "I curated food for the K-Wave Festival last year as well. But this time, I decided to go all out with innovation and study the K-pop and East Asian food wave in India closely. For this, I took a trip to South Korea earlier this year," she shares. The trip, she says, was enlightening. "We often tend to view East Asian food as something to indulge in at high-end restaurants. But if you visit Korea, their street food culture is as lively as ours. This time, I wanted to give K-pop fans a glimpse of that," she reveals.

Korean star corn dog and Sotteok

Along with traditional food available across the streets of Korea, Sanghvi will introduce some fusions. "In Korea, just like in India, they have Korean variations for global cuisines. Korean pizza options at Go Pizza outlets are a favourite there. I have collaborated with Pete's Pizzeria in Mumbai to introduce similar flavours through kimchi pizza with gochujang mayonnaise at the festival. Seoul Burgers and Shakes, on the other hand, will serve Seoul sizzle chicken burgers with prominent Korean street food flavours," she explains.

Bingsu

Other fusion foods to look out for at the festival include dak-kkochi kebab rolls by Feast at East. "You will find skewers everywhere in South Korea. They either skew meat or cheese. To bring a similar experience here, I introduced their famous skewed dak-kkochi with kebab." The curator also suggests trying fatcarons (Korean macarons) and bingsu (shaved ice cream) by Confetti and Cream, and egg drop sandwich (another popular Korean street food) by I'm Wholesome.

The food curation features famous fusion iterations available across the streets of South Korea, like Seoul sizzle chicken burger

"For traditional Korean street food, head to Sun and Moon Korea café's stall. Here, you will get red bean hotteok, sotteok and tteokbokki. Seoulmate will serve traditional mandu or dimsums. The K-pop star corn dog by Tiger Yaki is another must try," she lists. For those with a sweet tooth, tanghulu (candied fruits) and grilled marshmallows at Fruitilicious are instant K-sugar rush. "There is also a mocktail bar serving up K-pop inspired beverages. One of these is called Jimin-berry milk [named after BTS boy band member, Jimin] by Bobakat!" she shares excitedly.

On Today; 1 pm onwards
At Bayview Lawns, Victoria Docks, Mazgaon.
Log on to skillboxes.com (for entry pass)
Entry Rs 2,699 onwards

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