Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream's Korean food is everything to me
Overview & Key Takeaways
Finally, a game lets me eat Korean food beyond just kimchi. Thank you, Tomodachi Life.
Within the first few days of my Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream playthrough, a shop on my island was stocked with buchimgae, a Korean savory pancake dish, filled with vegetables or other goodies. "Woah, there's Korean food in this game. Neat!" I thought. But I didn't realize how much there would be.
A few days later, I got yangnyeom chicken (stylized in-game as yangnyeom chikin). Eventually I found more and more: sotteok sotteok (rice cakes and sausages on a skewer, doused in a sweet-spicy sauce), gim (dried, salted seaweed, also known as nori to some people), and gamja-tang (spicy pork bone soup). I excitedly send my group chat a screenshot of the new dish each time. I feel like a caveman discovering fire every time I get a new one.
I racked my brain to remember if there were Korean foods in the Nintendo 3DS version of the game I played more than a decade ago. No, certainly not. Upon some research, I learned that Tomodachi Life was released for the 3DS regionally with region-specific foods. The Korean version of the game has Korean food, duh. But now, with Living the Dream, that seal has been broken.
Naturally, I have to feed my Miis the Korean food. I, of course, have a Mii of myself, and I gorge her with every Korean food dish I get. I am repeatedly disappointed when she tells me she doesn't really like it. And I'm put off by the fact that her currently top-liked food is a tempura rice bowl (food that I just think is fine, and would probably not order over a different Japanese dish). None of the Korean dishes even break her top three.
Even now, I look at websites that have databases of Living the Dream’s food to see what I can get. I slam my fist on the table. Why has my game not serviced me ganjang-gejang (raw crab marinated in soy sauce and garlic) or sangyeopsal (barbecued pork belly) yet!? I need to feed this to the Tomodachi Life version of myself right now!
Please. This is literally one of my favorite foods ever.
Image: Animal Crossing World, Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon
Unfortunately, in a cruel twist of fate, most foreign dishes in this game are half-locked. The food store won't sell them, but they may appear through other means, whether it's the daily marketplace or from helping Miis solve problems. The hunt has begun. Rather than looking for rare shiny Pokémon, I am on the hunt for rare Korean food in my American copy of the game. To make matters a little harder, you can't time travel in Tomodachi Life. You'll be punished for doing so, and your shops won't refresh, thus thwarting any attempts to get the food faster.
Over a month later, I'm still checking in on my tomodachis. While, yes, I am still interested in their lives (two of my IRL friends who are married will just not get together in game, because they keep falling in love with Final Fantasy 7's Tifa Lockhart, which is understandable), I am eager every day, praying a new Korean dish has hit my island. I hope it's mul naengmeyon (buckwheat noodles in a cold broth). I'm hungry.
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I'm enjoying Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream a lot more than Animal Crossing: New Horizons for one very important reason
