Dubai: K-Food Fair – A Korean Food Fair in Dubai

// I was invited to the K-Food Fair and received a complimentary media pass //

I was really excited to find out that there’s a Korean food fair in Dubai this weekend, the K-Food Fair. I was born in Korea, and even though I grew up in Denmark with Danish parents, I’ve always loved Korean food (have they found the kimchi gene yet?). In Denmark, there are very few Korean restaurants and even if you live in one of the big cities, it’s difficult to find the Korean products you’ll need to cook Korean food.

In Dubai it’s much better, because even though the Korean community isn’t very big, Korean food is becoming more and more popular, and there’s a good selection of Korean restaurants, such as Kung, Sonamu, The Sky, Namu and Hyu.

The purpose of the K-Food Fair is both to establish a connection between Korean export firms and businesses in the UAE seeking to import Korean food items, but also to spread the knowledge and spark an interest in Korean food among the consumers in Dubai.

The K-Food Fair open to the public is on Friday and Saturday, but today, I attended a B2B seminar at Emirates Towers. I think all the Korean food brands I could think of were represented, along with a lot of brands and products I’ve never heard of. One of them was the Hallabong fruit, which is a very sweet, seedless citrus fruit, grown on Jeju Island in South Korea. It looked very tasty, but I didn’t dare to take one and thus ruin the nice display.

Of course there was also all sorts of kimchi from the well-known brand Chongga. You can buy Chongga kimchi in most supermarkets in Dubai, and even though it’s expensive, I sometimes end up buying a package anyway, as it’s the best ready-made kimchi available if you ask me.