Kim Jong-un loves expensive foie gras, lobster and caviar - and travels with his own luxury ingredients, says a chef who has cooked for the brutal dictator.
While many of his people go hungry and live in appalling conditions, the North Korean leader is enjoying the finer things in life at home and abroad.
Chef Paul Smart, who cooked for the ruler and US President Donald Trump during their summit in Vietnam last month, revealed Kim's staff tasted his dishes beforehand to make sure they were safe.
Mr Smart said the North Korean team told him all about Kim's favourite foods, and they brought their own ingredients, some of them high end.
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They include Wagyu beef, kimchi, foie gras, ginseng and persimmon punch, the South China Morning Post reported.
Mr Smart, one of very few foreigners to feed the North Korean leader, told China's state-run media: “He really likes to dine and experience cuisine for what it is."
The chef said Kim's team was “mysterious, but very professional", and they sampled his food before it was served to him to make sure it was safe.
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Mr Smart is the executive chef at Hanoi’s Metropole Hotel, where Kim and Trump met last month to discuss denuclearisation on the Koran peninsula and sanctions against Pyongyang.
The chef's team served the leaders steak and kimchi-stuffed pear on the first day of talks.
The lunch of fois gras and snow fish was scrapped when Kim and Trump abruptly broke off talks.
Mr Smart said he prepared mostly Western cuisine, adding: “I tried to keep the taste neutral and make delicious, simple foods that suited both tastes."
He had previously told AFP that Trump asked for his steak to be cooked well done.
Kim wanted his medium-rare to rare, the chef added.
This month, a UN report said millions of North Koreans don't have enough to eat after the secretive country's food production fell to its lowest level in over a decade in 2018.
