Japan & Korea Light & Food Festival Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is well known in Germany to be a hotspot for Japanese food. So a festival for Japanese (and Korean!) food has to be good, right?

Düsseldorf’s Rhine promenade close to the historic old town is used for a variety of festivals. People here are awaiting the opening of the Christmas market – or Winter markets if they remain open past December 24 – this month. But one food festival managed to get a spot before.

What’s in a name

This festival is confusing right from the get-go. On event sites, it is listed as the Japan & Korea Light & Food Festival Düsseldorf. The website calls it the Japan & Korean Food Festival, while in the header navigation is a pic that calls it the Japan Light & Food Festival. There’s also a horrible AI generated of Asian people toasting to the camera, with cherry blossom petals falling to the ground.

Spoiler: This video bears no resemblance to the festival at all.

There’s food

Fortunately, the festival is free. There was a ticket sale at the Eventbrite website, but it essentially just buys you a glass of Sake. It’s pointless.

Expecting a scam, I was quite surprised that there was a decent amount of food trucks with Japan- and Korea-themed food. Not necessarily authentic, but you do get varieties of tteokbokgi, gyoza, onigiri, kimbap, okonomiyaki and more. There are tents where you can sit down and munch on your expensive food: basically you pay double for half the food.

One concession that is typical for Japanese and Korean like food in Germany is that there is usually at least one vegetarian or vegan option. In Korea or Japan, there is usually no such option unless the business tries to appeal to foreign customers.

Unfortunately, the food we bought (mushroom kimbap) was a disaster. The rice was neither properly cooked, nor sticky enough. The provided fork was unsuitable, but even when eating with hands, the kimbap quickly disintegrated. It was quite a shock.

As there are different vendors, others provide probably a better culinary experience. The biggest problem of the festival however is that Düsseldorf has a high concentration of both Korean and Japanese restaurants and supermarkets. So good or at least competently cooked food is easy to come by.

But a festival isn’t solely defined by food quality, it’s also about atmosphere!

Light Festival

Supposedly starting at 5pm each day is the light festival. Again, the website suggests nicely decorated trees and an artificial flower field. Lovely.

Unfortunately, the reality is a short tent with some decorated fake mini trees, each covered with lights in one color. To be fair, this is actually shown on the website and there is no entrance fee for the tent.

That sums up all you can do at the festival. Mobile toilets are also provided. But let’s go back to the website, because it warrants a closer look.

Japan Light & Food Festival

The website is an interesting one, as is their Instagram account. The promo pic shows a (probably AI-generated) image of lit-up trees, Düsseldorf’s Rhine Tower and a cruise ship. The festival will also be held in the Netherlands – they swapped the Tower for a windmill.

But there is a photo of an actual festival with real humans underneath that promo pic on the website. Unfortunately it shows the Heumarkt in Cologne and that festival has no relation to the Japan & Korea Light & Food Festival Düsseldorf whatsoever.

The section “More than just Food” shows a couple of stock images with promises of live music, karaoke, traditional performances and a collaboration with the Moco Museum. None of that happened on Friday and there were no signs of them setting up a stage either. No main stage and no disco area.

The next part is a bunch of non-sensical placeholders like “94% Sushi Platter” or “95% Bibimbap Bowls”, followed by the festival programme. The latter doesn’t relate to anything happening at the festival.

Verdict

The festival was held in previous years, with different names. The gracious use of AI-generated images and videos, stock footage and misleading photos on the website as well as in social media made me immediately think that this is a scam.

Fortunately, it’s an actual food festival that does exist. So in that sense, it exceeded my expectations.

I can imagine though that visitors to Düsseldorf would be quite angry if they were lured by promises of Japanese pop-acts and a lively atmosphere “just like in Japan/Korea”. This is pretty much a standard food truck festival, just with food inspired by Japan and Korea. The tent with barely decorated fake trees barely qualifies it as a light festival, especially with the whole city starting to get decorated with lights anyway!