After having breakfast delivered to a Fang Cang makeshift hospital in Wuhan, cooks of Yanyangtian restaurant, which specializes in Hubei cuisine, immediately started to prepare for the lunch hour. Stir-fried cabbage, stir-fried green beans with minced pork and fried carrot with chicken was on the menu for lunch. Upon being cooked, the food was immediately packed and sent to the hospital.

Staff members of Yanyangtian restaurant cook food for the Fang Cang hospital. Photo provided by Yanyangtian restaurant

Yanyangtian is a designated restaurant that provides meals to patients and medical workers at the Fang Cang hospital located in Hongshan Gymnasium in Wuhan. This quarter of the city is located at the epicenter of the novel coronavirus epidemic.

The restaurant provides about 5,000 meals a day, a task which is handled by 50 cooks. They start to work at 3 a.m. every day and finish late each evening around 9 p.m., said Dong Lihong, manager of the restaurant.

The restaurant, which is 3.8 kilometers from the hospital, started to serve the hospital on Feb. 5, the day when the latter received the first batch of patients with mild symptoms.

Photo shows meal packages prepared by cooks at Yangyangtian restaurant. Photo provided by Yanyangtian restaurant

The meals are safe and nutritious and can be delivered to the doctors and patients very quickly. They have to go through three checkpoints before being taken out of the restaurant, according to Dong. She also said that the employees are sprayed with disinfectants before they enter the kitchen, adding that the kitchen and kitchenware are disinfected three times a day.

Besides regular meals, yogurt, eggs and bananas are also provided for the hospital. A team of more than 10 people from the Wuchang district market supervision department is in charge of delivering the meals.