Luckyrice Taps Into a Ready Market An Asian-focused food festival marketing company waited for the right moment to open.

As night fell under the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, N.Y., the air became perfumed with kimchi fried rice, chicken robata and mung-bean pancakes. The scene was the sold-out Luckyrice Asian food festival, one of the hottest tickets of the year for die-hard foodies on the East Coast, and the successful culmination of New York-based entrepreneur Danielle Chang's dream to raise the awareness of -- and profit from -- Asian cultures in the U.S.

Dishing: Luckyrice's Danielle Chang at Grand Feast with participating chefs Todd English (left) and Daniel Boulud.

Ten years ago Chang and a friend, TV journalist Lisa Ling, tried to start a magazine focusing on Asian cultures but written for a mass audience. They quickly realized that interest was lackluster. "We would go around and talk to advertisers and potential sponsors and they would always refer us to the niche marketing people or the ethnic marketing group. People couldn't understand how something about Asian culture could appeal to people who weren't Asian," Chang says.