Samgyetang

Samgyetang is a small whole chicken, its cavity packed with glutinous rice, ginseng, jujube, garlic and sometimes chestnut, simmered until the meat comes away and the broth turns milky, served scalding in a stone bowl with salt and pepper on the side to season yourself. The custom that puts it in July and August is iyeolchiyeol - treating heat with heat - and specifically the three sambok days of the hottest part of summer, when queues form outside the well-known restaurants and Koreans eat it deliberately in the worst of the humidity. The reasoning offered is that the body loses heat outward in summer and the core needs warming; whether that holds up is not something we take a view on, and it is a custom rather than a health claim. Variants exist with black chicken or additional herbs. Several Seoul restaurants have been doing it since the 1960s.

What you actually see

• The whole bird - stuffed with rice, ginseng and jujube.
• The milky broth - simmered until the meat falls apart.
• The stone bowl - served boiling, seasoned at the table.
• The sambok queues - the hottest days of summer outside the old houses.

When to go

July and August, and specifically the sambok days if you want the custom - expect long queues then. It is served year round and is easier to get any other time.

Honest expectations

It is deliberately plain - the broth is unseasoned and you salt it yourself, which surprises people expecting a strong flavour. Portions are one bird per person and filling. On sambok days the wait at famous restaurants can be over an hour.

Nearby

Long-running samgyetang houses cluster near Gyeongbokgung and City Hall in Seoul.