NKorea gets first taste of burgers

July 27, 2009 10:38:05 AM

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While North Korea has little appetite for "US imperialism," its people are finally able to get a taste of that iconic American food the hamburger at the country's first fast-food restaurant.

The Samtaeseong restaurant opened in the capital Pyongyang last month in cooperation with a Singaporean firm, Choson Sinbo, a Japan-based newspaper for ethnic North Koreans, reported at the weekend.

The isolated communist regime has long restricted or banned what it calls the Western or "US imperialist influences" on its people.

The restaurant -- which serves such fast food as burgers made of minced beef, fish or vegetables -- however does not call them "hamburgers," Choson Sinbo said.

It the menu lists "minced beef and bread" or "minced fish and bread" or "vegetables and bread," all served together with the Korean pickled cabbage dish, kimchi, it said.

The minced beef and bread costs 1.7 dollars, it said, a price exceeding half the average North Korean's daily income. The communist state's per capita income was 1,065 dollars last year.

Choson Sinbo said in March that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il had also ordered the opening of the country's first Italian restaurant in Pyongyang.

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