Lau Pa Sat (or “old market” in the Hokkien dialect) was Singapore's first wet market that dates back over 150 years ago to the time of Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. It was subsequently converted into a famous gourmet paradise and has been gazetted as a national monument since 1973. Over the years, Singapore’s hawker food culture has evolved tremendously: once rooted in the itinerant hawkers who plied the streets on foot or behind carts, or set up shop in temporary ‘villages’ of stalls, it now boasts an empire of clean, permanent hawker centres, breezily open-air or coolly air-conditioned, and is the focus of innumerable TV shows, print articles, and, of course, arguments over who cooks the best.