While North Korea has little appetite for “US imperialism,” its people are finally able to get a taste of the 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 over the weekend.

North Korea has long restricted or banned what it calls Western or “US imperialist influences” on its people.

The restaurant – serving fast food such as burgers made of minced beef, fish or vegetables – does not call them “hamburgers,” Choson Sinbo said. 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.

The minced beef and bread costs $1.7, more than half the average North Korean’s daily income. The state’s per capita income was $1,065 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.

(AFP)