Santap Lah: Ready-to-eat meals from Malaysia’s Michelin selected restaurants at a CAFé by 7-Eleven near you

What if having a Michelin-starred restaurant-quality meal is possible with just the press of a button? This is the concept behind Santap Lah, a new brand of microwaveable meals prepared and approved by chefs from Malaysia’s Michelin-selected restaurants. Founder Benson Chang approached chefs from familiar restaurants to develop high-quality, ready-to-eat meals with a shelf life of at least a year without refrigeration.

Chang's idea involved working with chefs Benson Chang himself knew well. He sought out chefs from well-known restaurants to develop recipes for the meals. After finding interested chefs, the team spent two years developing, testing, and refining recipes using high-temperature and pressure methods to sterilize the food, allowing it to be stored at room temperature. The meals are manufactured in a halal-certified facility using halal-certified ingredients, without preservatives or artificial flavorings.

Braised, steamed, and oven-cooked dishes using chicken, beef, lamb, mushrooms, and vegetarian ingredients were selected for the manufacturing and packing process, as crispy components, vegetables, and most seafood would not hold up well in the process. Each dish underwent multiple trial runs until it received a score of at least 8.5 from the chefs before mass production and distribution.

Santap Lah focuses on Malaysian flavors, featuring four rice meals in its initial launch: Kim Hock Su's mushroom rendang with rose water rice, Aidan Low's dabai curry rice, Raymond Tham's kadok chicken rice, and Nurilkarim Razha's rose chicken with buttered rice. These dishes will be available at 7-Eleven's CAFé outlets nationwide. The noodle-based meals are set to launch next month by Dewakan's Darren Teoh, Gai's Darren Chin, and gēn根's Johnson Wong.