Hotel opts for in-house meals

JAKARTA (JP): The management of Bumi Karsa Hotel in South Jakarta has decided to discontinue all outside catering services after food poisoning forced dozens of participants in two training sessions to be rushed to hospital on Tuesday.

"We have since then decided to cut all the catering services. From now on all the meals served in this hotel will be cooked by our pastry department," the general manager of hotel owner PT Mekar Prana Indah, Harry Satrio, said in a media conference on Wednesday.

"It's a little bit disturbing, but it's more hygienic this way."

Dozens of participants of two training programs held by tape cassette producer PT BASF and Bank Indonesia and at least two hotel employees were taken to the hotel's clinic and nearby hospitals after suffering nausea and vomiting.

Harry said food for Tuesday's event was ordered from a cake shop and not prepared by the hotel.

He said the hotel followed standard procedures by tasting the food before it was served.

"And we did not find anything wrong with the food before it was served," he said.

Harry said the hotel management would consider suing the cake shop owner if the snacks were proved to be the source of the food poisoning.

He said preliminary results from the hotel's internal investigation showed the source of the food poisoning was probably a traditional snack called semar mendem (glutinous rice, filled with meat and covered with flour) which was served at the first coffee break on Tuesday.

"But we have not come to a conclusion yet. Let's just wait for the results of an ongoing examination by the National Police Forensic Laboratory," he said. (09)