If you’ve been reading my blog, you’d remember my post from a few months ago where I ordered trial meals from various confinement meal services. With it being my second pregnancy, I knew I would want to hire a confinement meal service this time to make the first few weeks of postpartum a whole lot easier.
If you read that post, you’ll also know that Mama J Confinement Food ended up being the meal that I loved the most. I’m happy to report that we are collaborating to write about my experience with 14 days of double meals (lunch and dinner).
Well, fast forward to now, my baby has arrived. We are doing very well, with a quick, no-drama delivery (In fact, he is asleep in my arms as I am typing this post!). As soon as we were discharged from the hospital, I called up Mama J to start the confinement meal delivery.
I’ve been enjoying my daily meals with Mama J, and I’d like to share my honest experience with them!
- Why did I choose Mama J?
- How Mama J Confinement Meals Work
- My Experience with 14 Days of Confinement Meal: What Mama J Meals Look Like
- Mama J’s Menu
- What a typical meal looks like
- Meal Portion
- Ingredients
- Confinement Tea
- Meal Delivery Experience
- My favorite dishes from Mama J
- In Conclusion: Is Confinement Meal Worth It?
Why did I choose Mama J?
First things first – You might wonder why, after trying 5 confinement meal services, did I choose Mama J? Well, I decided that I like Mama J the most for several reasons:
- Taste – Out of the five, Mama J’s trial meal was the one that impressed me the most. I think the meals are best suited for my taste buds, and it also felt like a home-cooked meal. I got the Phoenix trial meal, which included Herbal Baked Chicken. That was one of the tastiest confinement dishes I’ve had.
- Small Business – While most other confinement meals operate more like a catering company, Mama J stuck out to me as a small family-operated business. Mama J started in 2020 during the pandemic. Up until 2022, they’re still only serving 8-12 clients every month. They have since expanded to a central kitchen. You can read more about their journey here.
- Delivered in reusable containers – Cute ones too! Mama J’s meals came in adorable pink-hued thermal containers, which are washed and will be reused with each meal. This was one of the requirements I had when choosing confinement service. I do not want to eat out of single-use containers, even if they are supposedly biodegradable. I think it is very wasteful especially when the meals are delivered twice daily for 7 to 28 days. That’s a lot of trash, don’t you think?
How Mama J Confinement Meals Work
Mama J offers double confinement meals, meaning your meals will be delivered fresh twice daily for lunch and dinner. The delivery timing for lunch is between 10.30 am to 1.15 pm and 4.30 pm to 7.15 pm for dinner, which should suit most people’s meal time.
Each meal is delivered inside a light pink thermal bag and using reusable thermal tingkat (layered) containers, which you can wash after you’re done with your meal and leave at your doorstep. It will be picked up when the next meal is delivered.
Communications with Mama J staff can be done conveniently through WhatsApp. At the beginning of your meal delivery, you’ll receive a welcome WhatsApp message informing you what to expect throughout the confinement meal service. You can use the same number to communicate with them if you have any questions or feedback. When a meal has been delivered, they’ll send you a WhatsApp to let you know.
Mama J does offer some flexibility. If you have other plans during confinement or simply needed a break, you can pause the meals at any time. Simply shoot them a message 1 day in advance via WhatsApp and they’ll take care of it for you.
My Experience with 14 Days of Confinement Meal: What Mama J Meals Look Like
The most important thing about confinement meal is arguably the food itself. So how do Mama J’s meals look like? Let’s take a look at the details of the meals I was served during my confinement.
Mama J’s Menu
Mama J plans their menu in 28 days (4 weeks) rotation. I assume this is because most people will traditionally opt for a 28-day confinement meal. This ensures no matter which package you choose, each meal of the day will be different. You will never be eating the same thing twice in a row, which I think is very important.
Mama J Weekly Menu: You can view their premium 2024 menu here.
What a typical Mama J meal looks like
Each meal consists of a 3-4 layer of tingkat container and a thermos for the soup.
Here is what’s inside the thermal bag:
- The first layer of the tingkat is carbs – usually, this is a type of rice (white rice, purple rice, brown rice) or noodles.
- The second layer would be the protein – usually braised, steamed, or grilled white fish, chicken, or pork.
- The last layer is vegetables, usually stir-fried with little to no oil or salt.
- On some days, there would be a hot soup dessert as well, which makes the tingkat extra tall at four layers!
- Served separately in a thermos is the soup, usually double-boiled soup with chinese herbs.
Meal Portion
One thing I have learned about myself from my previous pregnancy is that I have the appetite of an athlete when breastfeeding. Last time, I could easily down six slices of large 14″ pizza and still be hungry.
Well, that still rings true this time around. Even though the portion of Mama J’s meals are generous, I always end up finishing every single thing. I often hear from friends who do confinement that they would share their meals with their partner or divide it between two meals. But for me, the portion was good for myself for one meal. 😅
Ingredients
There are a few notable ingredients that make repeat appearances:
- Red Dates – These are usually used as an ingredient in soups. Believed to balance “qi” (vital energy), they become a must-have ingredient for confinement meals when new mothers must focus on recuperating.
- Goji Berries – Also used as an ingredient in the soup, or as toppings in the vegetable or protein part of the meal. These small red berries are a staple in Chinese food, believed to heal wounds and promote a balance of yin and yang.
- Ginger – Again, I see this often in the soup or sometimes as flavoring for the protein or vegetable dish. In Chinese medicine, ginger is used to keep the body warm, which is also important for new mothers as it is believed their body becomes “cold” after giving birth.
- Sesame Oil – Used to flavor the protein or vegetable dish. Sesame oil also plays a part in health recovery, especially after giving birth. I love the taste of sesame oil, so I was glad this is a recurring ingredient!
- Mushrooms – from wood ear mushrooms to hen-of-the-wood to silver fungus, there are plenty of mushrooms used in confinement meals. I’m not sure if there are any specific benefits of mushrooms from the traditional Chinese medicine point of view, but we know they are a great source of fiber and antioxidant.
Confinement Tea
Instead of delivering the tea every day, Mama J opts to send their tea at the start of your confinement meal. There are two types of tea: Red Dates Tea with Goji Berry and Ginger Orange Peel Brown Rice Tea. The teas are bagged conveniently for single-portion consumption, so you can have them at your convenience. Just add hot water!
Meal Delivery Experience
In the 14 days that I had my confinement meal, all of the meals were delivered on time within the specified time slot. For my location, the meals tend to be delivered earlier in the slot, around 11 AM to noon for lunch and around 5 to 6 PM for dinner. All of the meals were delivered still warm and the soup was piping hot. I usually would make a habit to open up the soup thermal container first before eating the rest of the meal, so that it has time to cool down to a temperature for eating.
Each meal is delivered contactless, so the drivers will not ring your doorbell. They will simply leave the meal at your door. My husband had the brilliant idea of leaving a hook hanging at my gate so that they don’t need to place my meals on the floor.
I would usually get a WhatsApp notification letting me know the meals have been delivered, which I appreciate as I don’t have to keep checking the door.
My favorite dishes from Mama J
After completing my 14-day confinement meal, here are a few of the stand-out dishes for me:
Baked Herbal Chicken – While I did not get to have it during my confinement meal, I had this as part of the trial and I know they serve it at least once during the 28-day meal. This chicken was so delicious I’m still thinking about it!
Baked Turmeric Fish – I love turmeric. It helps fight inflammation and is also delicious. For this dish, it is paired with white fish and sweet potato coins. I think it goes really well with each other.
Apple Curry Chicken – I gasped when I first bit into this meal. The curry is light and has a hint of sweetness to it, I assume from the apple. It’s not spicy at all, but very flavorful.
Green Onion and Sesame Oil Noodles – I still remember this meal bc I was disappointed when I opened the tingkat and saw this noodle. It looks plain, and I’m a huge rice person. Well, I was proven very wrong – the noodle was delicious! The sesame oil flavor comes through well, not overpowering. The noodles were soft and bouncy. It’s something I could have every day, really!
Black Bean Braised Pork – I love anything in black bean sauce, so naturally this dish made the shortlist as one of my favorites. They’re quite generous with the portion, and I loved how adorable the shape of the rice was for this meal.
In Conclusion: Is Confinement Meal Worth It?
After experiencing the confinement meals, I can confidently say that YES, it is worth it, a thousand times over. Even if you don’t subscribe to traditional Chinese beliefs, the convenience itself was worth it. It was such a delight to not have to think about what to eat when we had a million other things to do. Outsourcing this one crucial part of the day made it easier not just for me, but for the people around me who were supporting me during the first few weeks. We all could focus on the baby’s well-being instead.
With my firstborn, I did not engage any confinement meal service. Let me tell you… the difference was stark. Back then, we ended up getting take-outs or relying on delivery apps most of the time. Most of the time, we ended up eating at 9 PM or even 10 PM as we just did not have time to sort out proper meals. There was also that paralyzing decision of “what should we eat today”, which added even more mental load to the already busy mind. I couldn’t ensure I was eating a nutritious meal every day as sometimes we ended up ordering fast food. I believe it contributed to why I was having such a difficult time during what they call “the fourth trimester”.
With Mama J’s meals, I was noticeably more relaxed and a lot less stressed out this time around. I won’t lie, taking care of a newborn is still challenging, but at least I was eating healthy food with one less major thing to worry about in my head.
It also helps that Mama J’s meals were so delicious! I have a big appetite when I’m breastfeeding and I’m always hungry. After a few days of Mama J’s confinement meal, I had conditioned myself to start expecting my meals when 11 AM or 5 PM rolled around. I would get a little hangry and start pacing by the door when they’re just a tiny bit later than usual 🤣
I can say that I loved most of the dishes that were served during my 14-days confinement package. Evidently, I always polished clean my meals down to the very last grain of rice. I have to admit that I did not enjoy some of the herbal soups (some of them tasted weirdly sweet to me), but I know they were for my own good so I drank them all anyway to the very last drop.
I went with the 14 days confinement meal package since I value variety in my meals and expected that I would get bored after 2 weeks. Of course, Mama J’s menu has a lot of variety and does not repeat, but I need variety in terms of cuisine. I was correct that I did get quite bored of all the confinement food towards the end of the 14 days – I started thinking about what I’d eat the next day after my last meal was dropped off.
However, the excitement quickly turned into regret as I started missing the convenience a few days later. Looking back, I really could have gone with the 28-day meal since Mama J is flexible about pausing the meal. I could just choose to pause whenever I needed a break from eating confinement food.
So yes, if I were to give birth again, hiring a confinement meal service would be my number one priority.
And that’s my experience with my confinement meal service this time around! As usual, please feel free to leave me a comment below. I love hearing from you and I’ll try to respond in a timely manner, even though my hands are quite full with the newborn these days!
If you find this review useful and if you end up getting your confinement meal from Mama J, please let them know that Melissa from GirlEatWorld sent you! I would really appreciate it 🙂
Note: My meal was provided by Mama J for the purposes of writing this review. As always, all opinions are honest and remain my own.