Curries are pretty hard to screw up, yet are extremely satisfying. Thai, Indian, Japanese, they're all good.

Pretty much just thickened stews, so you can add or remove things to your taste or make it seasonal. Can have any meat or can be vegan or anywhere in between. Serve up with rice or bread. Extremely versatile all around.

Somewhat related, African Peanut Chicken Soup. Hearty yam and carrot, in a spicy peanut broth. It's all familiar ingredients, but in a combo your taste buds may not be familiar with, so comforting and exotic at the same time.

Exotic is in the eye of the beholder. When I was a kid (around 1970?) my dad brought home a couple of Russian Cosmonauts who were visiting JPL. My mom made fried chicken or something, but what fascinated them was her pecan pie. One was saying he would see if his wife could try making it, and we wondered afterwards how it would taste, considering they'd probably have to substitute walnuts.... And did they have molasses or corn syrup?

Okay... I don't consider this exotic (unlike pumpkin pies), but you probably do so here's how to prepare candied squash/pumpkin.

Ingredients:

• 1kg of squash. Any sweeter variety works*. Only the flesh; no seeds or skin. Cut it into large-ish cubes (~4 cm should be good)
• enough water to cover the above.
• 10g of food grade quicklime, or roughly a tablespoon.**
• 500g of sugar.
• 500ml of water. (yup, again)
• whole cloves and cinnamon sticks to taste. 3~4 cloves and 2~3 cinnamon sticks should be enough.

1. Put the squash cubes into a bowl, cover them with water, and add the quicklime. Mix it a bit, and let it rest for 3h.
2. Drain the water and rinse the cubes. Then use a fork to pierce a side of each cube (so the syrup penetrates it.). Reserve.
3. Boil the 500ml of water. Add sugar, cinnamon, cloves. Let the sugar dissolve.
4. Add the squash cubes, and cook them in the syrup, over low fire. It needs to be low fire, otherwise you won't be able to cook them evenly.
5. Keep cooking them for 1h or so, mixing it occasionally. Be gentle, as you don't want to break the cubes. The syrup should reduce quite a bit, and the cubes should be soft on the inside; some leathery skin is expected (and desirable), but if they're still tough and the syrup reduced too much it's fine to add a tiny bit of water to compensate the loss.
6. Let it cool and enjoy. They should turn out like this:
   

Notes:

* traditionally this sweet is made with this sort of squash, known in Portuguese as "abóbora menina":

You can use pretty much any sweeter variety of squash though. Kabocha, pumpkin, buttercup etc.

** using quicklime on food might sound weird, but it's fairly common across the world. For example they use it in North America to nixtamalise maize, and in China for century eggs. I don't think that you'll have a hard time finding it in Korea.

What's exotic to you? It rather matters where you are from.

So, unless you happen to be Dutch, you've probably never had tiny Dutch pancakes: https://www.wandercooks.com/poffertjes-dutch-mini-pancakes/

You don't actually need to special pan, but it sure helps a lot.

Exotic, maybe not depending on your feelings on access to rich velutinous chocolate: ganache. Equal parts heavy cream and semi-sweet chocolate chips by weight. Heat the cream until just below simmer, add to the chips, wait 5 minutes and then mix. Profit.

Dutch Stamppot.

Patato mashed together with fried onions and bacon and any vegetable you like. Raw spinach, raw endive, raw cornsalad, kale is cooked with the patato, sauerkraut (maybe kimchi?), or carrot+onions.Mash it all up with a bit of cream or milk, serve with brown or butter gravy and smoked sausage (rookworst), or pork belly, or pork chop. We Dutch mostly eat it in wintertime. It's quickly made and filling.

Of you like meat and can get the correct chiles, you should make birria, specifically tacos. You can use mozzarella if you can't find any Mexican cheese.

Quiche, especially without the pie crust, is as simple as whisking up some eggs, cheese, milk or cream, and whatever veggies/herbs you have lying around in a pan and baking it. Very good for breakfast and relatively easy to put together.

Escargot

Katsu

Sauerkraut, just cabbage, salt, and time.

If you like the middle Eastern food, delicious ful mudamas is so easy to make with canned favas.

bread

Macarons are easy to make if you have access to almonds or almond flour.

https://www.marthastewart.com/1106683/french-macarons-basic-recipe

The wife and I make crab rangoons in the air frier that are fairly easy to make.

Thai basil chicken is stupid easy.