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In Australia there has been a great profusion of Korean restaurants, often BBQ places with grills on your table to cook your own meet, but also places that have cooked/prepared dishes, buffet.etc. It seems things like beef bulgogi, barbecued meats, bibimbap, kimchi.etc are becoming pretty well known here. They're often packed with not just Koreans but with all sorts of people. It seems this really began about 10 years ago or so. Dunno what it's like in your area, but I would say Korean has become mainstream over the past few years. I prefer it to Japanese in some ways, I guess it is more seasoned: the charred taste of meat, pickled meats, chillis, sesame oil, garlic, scallions, ginger and of course the savoury of rice are some tastes that seem to define Korean food.
Around here, Americanized Chinese is still the most popular asian food, followed by Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese (in that order, by my guesstimation). Korean is just starting to bubble up.
In the town where I live, about 15-20 percent of the population is Korean, and their numbers are rapidly growing. So, not surprisingly, their food is quite common here. I find that I like bulgulgi well enough, but otherwise, I simply don't care for it. (Except for their snack food -- Korean cookies and the like are delicious!) I'll go to a Korean restaurant if someone else really wants to, but I don't seek them out on my own.
My daughter has a love for the K dramas and K bands so she got me hooked in to the cooking part. Thankfully we have a few excellent Korean groceries here and i am able to obtain the ingredients. There is one Korean restaurant that we like a lot close by as well. But I wouldn't say it's take a hold here locally for us. I wish it did though! It's so delicious. In fact I am making kimchi now.
Korean food is semi-mainstream here in the US. Not as mainstream as Japanese or Chinese because Korean foods are too pungent and extreme for most Americans.
It's very salty or too spicy for some. If you take out those flavors then it taste like Chinese foods.
Take Bulgogi, if it ain't spicy then it taste like fajita without the fennels. Just add cheese to it then it becomes Philly Cheese steak.
Other dishes maybe too extreme for most Westerners.
Korean style fried chicken is gaining popularity but that's a fusion dish not an authentic Korean dish.
I'm part asian and think korean food , especially their seafood, can be some of the strangest, unappealingest stuff ever. But traditional Chinese food can also be like that however Chinese is much more mainstream.
If korean food ever goes mainstream it would be the barbecue, maybe some noodle dishes. I remember eating korean food at a gas station near Charleston and it was good. It was the easier to eat stuff though.
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