I’m Obsessed With the Korean Food in Tomodachi Life

Just days into my playthrough of Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, I stumbled upon a shop on my island selling buchimgae—savory Korean pancakes packed with vegetables. I was genuinely surprised. “Wow, actual Korean cuisine in this game? That’s awesome.” Little did I know, this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Soon after, I unlocked yangnyeom chicken. Before long, my collection expanded to include sotteok sotteok (skewered rice cakes and sausages glazed in a sweet-spicy sauce), gim (dried, salted seaweed), and gamja-tang (a robust, spicy pork bone soup). Every time a new dish appeared, I felt like a pioneer discovering something revolutionary, immediately snapping screenshots to share with my friends.

I tried to recall if the original 3DS version I played over a decade ago featured similar culinary variety. It certainly didn’t. After some digging, I realized that the 3DS release was heavily tailored by region; the Korean version had Korean dishes, while others didn’t. With Living the Dream, however, those geographic boundaries seem to have vanished.

Naturally, I’ve made it my mission to feed these items to my islanders. I’ve been relentlessly feeding my own personal Mii every Korean dish I acquire, though I’m consistently let down by her lukewarm reaction. It’s even more disheartening that her favorite food is a tempura rice bowl—a dish I find rather uninspired. None of the Korean options have managed to crack her top-three favorites list.

I find myself constantly consulting online databases to track down the remaining items. I honestly get frustrated when I see dishes like ganjang-gejang (marinated raw crab) or samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly) listed, knowing they haven’t graced my store yet. I’m desperate to feed them to my Mii counterpart!

Unfortunately, most of these international dishes are difficult to obtain, as they aren’t sold in the standard shop. Instead, you have to rely on the daily marketplace or random events when helping Miis solve their problems. It’s become a full-blown scavenger hunt. Rather than chasing rare Pokémon, my current objective is tracking down elusive Korean delicacies in my North American save file. Adding to the challenge is the game’s strict anti-cheat policy; time traveling is penalized by locking your shops, making it impossible to speed up the process.