Sticky Rice: A Thai food restaurant radiating the brilliance of authentic Thai dishes

He shares his experiences of starting a Thai restaurant in the UAE.

“Not all those who wander are lost” is a phrase people have heard umpteen number of times. It stands true for several professionals, leaders, experts and business owners across industries who hopped from one place to the next to reach where they are today. However, there are a few who transitioned within the same industry to explore more opportunities, learn new things and eventually strengthen their presence with their brands in the industry. No one better serves as an example here than Mo Abedin, a restauranteur who has flourished a Thai food brand in Dubai and Abu Dhabi called Sticky Rice. In the past few years, this Thai food restaurant has made heads turn with its duck mascot, “Kew”, and, most importantly, its bona fide Thai food.

Mo Abedin, along with his team (sister – Maryam Abedin and wife – Nina Fahmi) is glad and proud of how far Sticky Rice has reached in its journey, growing from a passion project of his late mother, Amena Rakkuson, aka Mama, into a full-fledged Thai restaurant in Dubai’s Jumeirah Village Circle and now in Abu Dhabi’s Yas Mall. He says, “Mama was an extremely inspiring woman who worked on her craft every day of her life. Out of her love for her country, family, culture and passion for cooking, she was able to make recipes that were thousands of years old and truly her own. The amount of thought and respect for the ingredients and cooking techniques that went into her food was amazing. It was always beautiful to watch her experiment with cooking. I always believed that she was an artist more than a chef. If people are deciding to open restaurants serving traditional food, whether they are from that region/culture or not, they must first respect and understand the roots of where these recipes come, learn the culture, the traditions first and then start incorporating themselves into those dishes to make them their own.”

He further says that Thai cuisine is well-known for its perfect balance of the four fundamental tastes like, sweet, sour, salty, and spicy, where each dish is expected to possess these tastes. Thai cuisines are diverse because it is a combination of four regional cooking found in the country. Keeping all these points in mind and making sure to stick to the core values of the business, Mo Abedin ensured to build Sticky Rice and made its exclusive Thai dishes its USP like Green Curry, Mango and Sticky Rice with Coconut Soft Serve Ice Cream dishes, series of seafood platters, Seafood Tom Yum, Sticky Tamarind Wings, Pad See Ew Pak, Spicy Kaeng Keaw Wan and much more. Sticky Rice’s Abu Dhabi outlet also serves a special sweet dish with Nutella, Bananas and condensed milk.

Mo Abedin says that starting a business in the UAE did come along with several challenges, but they thrived on their bona fide Thai food and the passion of his late mother, which helped the brand  (@stickyriceae) reach impressive success.