Chinatown Complex Food Centre

Chinatown Complex holds more hawker stalls than anywhere else in Singapore, over two hundred of them on the second floor above a wet market, and the scale is the point: a grid of aisles where the same dish is sold by a dozen different stalls, with prices that are among the lowest in the city. One stall here held a Michelin star for soya sauce chicken rice, which brought queues it never had before. Older men play chess in the corners all afternoon.

What you actually see

• The scale - over two hundred stalls, the largest such centre in Singapore.
• The wet market - the produce and meat market on the floor below.
• The low prices - some of the cheapest cooked food in the city.
• The chess corners - the afternoon social life of the centre.

When to go

Year round; lunchtime is busiest and many stalls close by mid-afternoon. Evenings have a different set of stalls open. Chinese New Year closes many of them for days.

Honest expectations

It is hot, crowded and confusing, and finding a specific stall in the grid takes patience. Many stalls close on rotating days. Seats at peak times require the chope convention of leaving a tissue packet.

Nearby

Maxwell is east, and Sri Mariamman is north.