[News Today] MYSTERIOUS K-FOOD IN FRANCE

[LEAD]
In France, K-food including Korean street food is gaining traction, especially among the youth. This trend has sparked an increase in Korean restaurants managed by Chinese owners. Yet, some of the food labelled as "Korean", don't seem Korean at all. Here's more.

[REPORT]
A Korean restaurant in Paris.

The hottest menus include fried chicken, tteokbokki and ramyeon.

Swedena Siri/ Customer
My favorite food is yangnyeom (seasoned) chicken. I like it because it's spicy.

Korean food, long represented by bibimbap and bulgogi, has become more varied and accessible as street food.

With the rising popularity of Korean cuisine, the number of Korean restaurants run by Chinese owners has increased greatly as well.

Chinese-owned Korean restaurants are expanding their presence in the key commercial areas in Paris by using their huge funds to increase the number of franchise stores.

This is a Korean restaurant run by a Chinese owner with three chain stores.

The interior features neon signs in hangeul, but the word spacing is all wrong and there are several typos.

The reporter ordered a spicy beef bulgogi and a Seoul-style noodle dish.

The dishes look nothing like Korean food.

Soundbytes: (This looks like a Chinese dish.) It has cilantro, cucumber.

And they naturally taste like Chinese food.

This tastes somewhat like China's dan dan mian.

Another Korean restaurant that's hot among locals.

The reporter ordered sundubu and kimchi jjigae.

The dishes look authentic enough, but they taste completely different.

Lee Yong-kyung/ President, French Korean Cuisine Assn.
Ripe kimchi is a bit sour. So the Chinese put vinegar in kimchi, they also used Chinese soy sauce.

Online reviews are full of criticisms about the mysterious food.

More concerning is that people who eat such food for the first time could mistake it for authentic Korean cuisine.

Having undergone the same experiences in the past, Japan adopted a system of granting certification marks to Japanese restaurants overseas that adhere to authentic recipes.

Korea's new challenge is preserving the identity of Korean cuisine amid its growing popularity.