July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Kim Jong Il looks out on a Beijing street. The North Korean dictator has brought his bouffant hair and gray suit to China.

On a night cab ride, he appears both smiley and scary: an apparition in a flash of white light atop a barbed-wire wall. You do a double take before you realize that he is just a photo in a glass case. Next to him is an older man in black: his late father Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994.

This ghost is the first glimpse of the North Korean embassy. The country is in the limelight again -- for all the wrong reasons, as usual. China agreed for the first time to punish senior North Korean government officials for defying United Nations resolutions barring nuclear and missile tests, China’s deputy ambassador said on July 13.

So if you’re planning to tour the nation now, it might be best to hold off that booking. Even in calmer times, one could expect to wait weeks for a visa, a costly and frustrating proposition.

A substitute for the real thing might be a visit to the various North Korean cultural and culinary outposts around the nation’s embassy -- a guarded compound north of downtown Beijing’s Ritan Park.

While China grew, its Cold War ally eschewed similar economic reforms. Now that Beijing is open to the world, the Chinese capital remains North Korea’s primary point of contact with other nations.

Pyongyang Journey

Beijing would usually be a foreigner’s first stop en route to Pyongyang. The Chinese capital has its own extensive North Korea-themed offerings to serve its own community.

Walk around the area and you will see slogan-bearing banners, a threadbare flag, the aforementioned photomontage of the Kims and other idyllic images of the nation.

Inside, you may be met with a surly North Korean who gives unsmiling travel advice. On the wall hang murals of the Kims and copies of the Korean Worker’s Daily, one of many papers that extol the brilliance and abundance of the “Pyongyang Paradise.”

The mission grounds rank among Beijing’s largest, filling an area about the size of five football pitches. During international crises involving North Korea, you can see dozens of journalists camped out across the street, watching cars with darkened windows come and go.

Blueberry Liquor

For lunch, try heading north up the road to Yinpanguan, for the city’s best North Korean food. The embassy runs it to help the nation earn hard currency. The menu offers very spicy kimchi, barbecued beef and blueberry soju liquor.

While I munch on kimchi pancakes and bulgogi beef -- tender pieces of soy-and-sesame sauce marinated meat -- my thoughts drift to the bulk of North Koreans who can dine like this only in their dreams.

Attractive waitresses are all Pyongyang natives, had taught Chinese back home and are given the rare privilege of leaving North Korea. On the ground floor, a nonstop karaoke loop alternates between images of Pyongyang and military sing-alongs.

While Beijing’s Panjiayuan Antiques Market might be famed for its fake products, such as counterfeit Rolexes and Qing Dynasty ceramics, you’re more likely than not to find genuine North Korean souvenirs and for a bargain. The reason? Few want them.

Loyalty Badges

We discover photos salvaged from the embassy’s montage display, sold by two dealers whose main business is Cultural Revolution keepsakes. Also for sale: LP records, newspapers, magazines and “loyalty badges” bearing the likeness of the late Kim Il Sung.

For dinner, we find stronger decor and weaker food at Haitanghua, another Pyongyang-run outfit.

Seafood concoctions are simmered in conch shells and North Korean karaoke runs nonstop. Murals in the North Korean landscape-romantic style adorn beautiful banquet rooms, including one depicting scenes around Mount Paektu.

Like Kremlinologists during the Cold War, we try to decipher from staff behavior what is going on in North Korea. The waiters are really pushing the expensive liquor, so I guess North Korea’s present currency crunch is even more acute than usual. On request, the waiters double as a dance troupe; all are North Koreans selected for good looks and political loyalty. One edible souvenir: house-brand kimchi packets.

Panjiayuan’s North Korean imports are real enough, but for high-end items, try the Pyongyang Art Studio.

Set up by British expatriates who run tours to North Korea, the studio offers hand-painted canvases of workers and peasants and other depictions of North Korea.

The gallery doubles as the headquarters of Koryo Tours, which offers monthly screenings of films made in and about North Korea. It also has a full bar, placing it in the league of Best Offices Ever, offering us an ideal place to unwind after our trip to Beijing’s Little Pyongyang.

A trip that doesn’t require a visa.

(Nick Fischer writes for Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Fischer in Beijing at nick.b.b.f@gmail.com

Last Updated: July 15, 2009 12:00 EDT