Of all the places you would expect to find a North Korean-owned chain restaurant called Pyongyang, Cambodia may make the short list of least likely locales to host yet another of the DPRK’s exotic, quixotic, or just down-right odd attempts at propaganda.

These restaurants serve traditional Korean fare and feature beautiful and talented waitresses that sing, dance, play the harp etc. all the while serving up delectable course after course of food that would be tough to obtain in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The BBC’s Ed Butler reported on this eccentric DPRK campaign from Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, a land that is no stranger to evil dictatorship.

Butler’s investigation into the mysterious DPRK-backed restaurants discovered that the working theory among North Korea watchers is that these restaurants function as another way for the regime in Pyongyang to funnel hard currency and make money. They could even be under the control of the DPRK’s Bureau 39, the office specifically tasked with obtaining and generating hard currency, often in the form of drugs, weapons trade, and counterfeiting.

Yet again, Kim Jong un’s regime does not fail in its many and innovative ways to make money. Below you can watch video of a Pyongyang restaurant in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

[BBC]