Global Re-Routes

As croissant innovation continues to trend across all-day bakeries, chefs are increasingly using familiar pastry formats as vehicles for global flavors. At Chicago’s Daeji Dough Company, tteokbokki takes an unexpected turn atop a flaky seaweed croissant, glazed with sweet-spicy gochujang sauce and studded with chewy rice cakes. The result is craveable and surprising, using a recognizable bakery form to introduce an emerging Korean ingredient to a broader audience.

A similar strategy plays out at Parachute HiFi, a modern Korean listening bar in Chicago, where tteokbokki is reimagined through a pad Thai lens. By swapping out rice noodles for Korean rice cakes, the restaurant highlights how seamlessly tteokbokki can stand in for pasta or noodles, absorbing sauce while maintaining its signature chew. These bakery and noodle riffs prove that tteokbokki is moving beyond its street-food roots into globally inspired, all-day contexts that feel both creative and accessible.