In the first episode, Gi-hun takes his daughter to eat tteokbokki, delicious but cheap rice cakes with red pepper sauce. He is disheartened when his daughter tells him that she isn’t very hungry because her stepdad already took her to a steak house.
Of course, it’s obvious to anyone that steak would be fancier than rice cakes in a street food stall. But non-Korean viewers may not grasp just how significant it is.
Steak is expensive in Korea. Extremely expensive. For regular people, it is reserved for special occasions. So taking someone to a steak house isn’t simply a regular nice meal.
The stepfather was going absolutely all out, and in the process highlighting how much Gi-hun is failing to provide for his daughter. If you watch the scene again, you can basically see Gi-hun’s face drop in disappointment when he learns this.
Another important scene involving steak is the last dinner the last three players are given before the final game. Once more, the game masters decide to treat the finalists to something very special, and few things could be more special than steak. (Of course, they also wanted an excuse to give them knives.)
When Sae-byeok doesn’t finish her steak, Gi-hun immediately realizes something is wrong. He also knows she is lying when she says she didn’t eat simply because it wasn’t good.
Yes, the characters were basically starved and would’ve been happy to have any proper meal, but a Korean person refusing expensive steak really would be a call for alarm.
