North Korea enters fast-food world

SEOUL, South Korea — You still can’t get a hamburger in Pyongyang, but the suspiciously similar “minced beef and bread” is for sale at the North Korean capital’s first fast-food restaurant, a report said Saturday.

The Samtaesong restaurant opened in the communist country last month in cooperation with a Singaporean company, according to Tokyo-based Choson Sinbo. The company provided training to restaurant staff and supplied equipment.

The restaurant’s interior appears to be styled after fast-food joints the world over, but the menu is careful not to call its signature fare a hamburger — lest it give the impression North Koreans had embraced the American icon.

The authoritarian government is concerned that outside influences could undermine the regime and pose a threat to leader Kim Jong Il’s tight grip on the nation. It balks at using foreign words and coins alternatives in Korean instead.

But this is not the government’s first foray into foreign food. In March, the Choson Sinbo, widely considered a mouthpiece for the North Korean government, reported that Kim had ordered the opening of the country’s first Italian restaurant. The chefs there were trained in Italy and food made with imported ingredients was served.

The minced beef and bread at the new fast-food restaurant costs only $1.70, the newspaper said, but that would eat up more than half of the average North Korean’s daily income.