Prince Court Medical Centre's smoked garlic croissant and smoked chicken turmeric cream éclair sandwich.
BANKING on the notion that home is a feeling and not just a place, IHH Healthcare Malaysia aims to recreate a sense of home for their inpatients with its revamped menu by award-winning celebrity Chef Datuk Fazley Yaakob.
The new menu launched in October 2022 centres around comforting and nutritious meals that are not just flavourful but also fulfil their patient’s dietary requirements.
Chef Fazley (left) and Jean-François Naa from IHH Healthcare collaborated to change the perception of hospital food and add a touch of comfort and a sense of ‘home’ for patients.
“We want to challenge ourselves and change the perception of hospital food and add a touch of comfort and a sense of ‘home’ for our patients too,” says IHH Healthcare Malaysia chief executive officer Jean-François Naa.
“We hope to give our patients a positive patient experience and we know good food helps in a patient’s wellbeing and recovery, especially when they eat well.
“We also strive to decrease food waste when patients are able to select the menu items they like”
“Almost all of the ingredients used are sourced locally to achieve an optimum level of freshness while reducing the organisation’s carbon footprint,” he says.
This sustainability approach is part of IHH Healthcare’s aspiration to Care. For Good, which is to provide greater good to its patients, people, the public and our planet.
Inpatients will be able to enjoy scrumptious new signature dishes including nasi dulang pantai at Pantai Hospitals, smoked chicken papeterie encased with tricolour tomato soup at Gleneagles Hospitals and smoked garlic croissant and smoked chicken turmeric cream éclair sandwich at Prince Court Medical Centre.
Pantai Hospital signature dish nasi dulang pantai.
Other meals available include:
> Pantai Hospitals: Chef speciality dishes include chicken lemak cili api pasta, pan mee noodles with meat egg rolls, smoked chicken lemak cili api fried rice as well as regional dish such as beringin pandan rice (south), soup a la Doraisamy with roti bakar and salted butter (central) and kampung chicken vermicelli noodle soup (north).
> Gleneagles Hospitals: Chef speciality dishes such as laksa Negeri Sembilan and chicken lemak cili api pasta along with regional dishes including tuaran noodles (central), beringin pandan rice (south) and minced chicken curry with lemuni rice (north).
> Prince Court Medical Centre: Signature dishes include fresh watermelon juice with fresh mint leaves, salted lychee granita and monsieur Rembau soup well.
“To ensure our in-house chefs stay true to Chef Fazley’s style, they have gone through a series of rigorous training with Chef Fazley himself to perfect the recipes.
“Patients can look forward to a new menu that has been carefully crafted based on their feedback while fulfilling their dietary requirements,” he says.
He adds that this revamp took 10 months of consulting the chefs and dieticians across their hospitals.
Gleneagles Hospital's smoked chicken papeterie encased with tricolour tomato soup.
This led to the most challenging aspect of the project – how to make the menu appealing to patients while fulfilling dietary requirements.
“This is when we decided to partner with none other than celebrity Chef Fazley – a person who is a master of Malaysian tastes, including Malay, Chinese and Indian food.
“He is also a firm believer of healthy cooking to ensure we capture the necessary elements perfectly at our hospitals,” he says.
For Chef Fazley, his personal connection with Pantai Hospital has made this journey all the more special.
“I had always sought treatment at Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur ever since I was young. It also gives me great joy to be able to work with 16 experienced chefs from all 16 hospitals.
“Most of us who grow up here in Malaysia, we have a specific mindset and outlook on what hospital food is like, even if we’ve never been hospitalised. We know exactly what to expect.
“My aim is to challenge the mindset of ‘hospital food’. We have a specific mindset and outlook on how hospital food looks and tastes,” he says.
He adds that they are not only good for nourishment and healing, but also pretty on the eyes, aromatic on the nose and exciting for the heart and mind.
“The dishes are low in calories, sugar, salt and even oil. Certain fresh ingredients have been purposefully selected for its high amounts of antioxidants.
“All of these are factored to ensure that patients recover as well and as quickly as they can. No longer is wellness food restricted to soup and porridge,” he says.
