Dubai restaurant Sticky Rice to temporarily close as Covid-19 cases rise

'We have decided that for the safety of our team as well as yours and your families, we will be taking a short break,' the owners announced

The mother-and-son duo behind Sticky Rice, Mo Abedin and Amena Rakkuson, pictured in August 2019. They have recently announced a decision to temporarily close their restaurants as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the UAE. Chris Whiteoak / The NationalShow less

The owners of Sticky Rice have announced they are temporarily closing both Dubai restaurants as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the UAE.

"With the current surge of cases, Mama has decided that for the safety of our team as well as yours and your families, we will be taking a short break," owners of the family-run Thai restaurants wrote on Instagram.

"Please remember to always take care of your loved ones, be safe out there, wear your masks, and sanitise regularly. Thanks for your support and don’t worry, we will be back to feed you all again really soon!"

Speaking to The National, co-owner Mo Abedin said: "It was definitely a difficult decision, but doing the right thing always is. We love feeding the community and have been doing so since the pandemic started and we intend on continuing to do so well after it's gone.

"We believe in our community and we believe they trust in us and what we do, which gives us the confidence to make these kinds of decisions, because they have always been nothing but amazing and super supportive."

In the past year, the restaurant has grown from a six-table family eatery in Dubai's Jumeirah Village Circle to a new, larger outlet at Food District, The Pointe on Palm Jumeirah.

Of their decision not to offer a delivery-only option, Abedin said: "It’s a difficult one since we were solely doing deliveries until we opened our second outlet on Palm Jumeirah."

In order to try to remain Covid-19-safe for both staff and customers, he says they have "taken every single possible precaution imaginable and advised to [them] by the DHA [Dubai Health Authority]. Masks, gloves, sanitising, deep cleans and residual disinfection."

He added: "We would still like to provide a dine-in option for the community, but given the current conditions of the rising cases it’s really hard for us to do that at this moment in time."

Abedin says he hopes the outlets don't have to be closed for too long, but adds: "We would definitely like to see an improvement in positive cases before we resume again."

The Sticky Rice story 

Sticky Rice is a passion project run by a mother-and-son duo. Abedin was born in Bangkok, and his Emirati father and Thai mother lived and worked there when he was a child, before they returned to the UAE some years later.

Seafood soup at Sticky Rice. Chris Whiteoak / The National

Abedin's mother, Amena Rakkuson, lovingly referred to by patrons as "Mama", has been feeding Dubai’s Thai community for the past 20 years.

She began working out of the family kitchen and delivered all over the city, sometimes driving up to six hours a day to feed people who craved a taste of Thailand. In a few years, she had 200 regular customers, who ordered everything from the spicy tom yum soup and pad Thai noodles, to other traditional dishes that take up to eight hours to make, she told The National in 2019.

Rakkuson, who has been making meals for her family since she was 9, said it was her dream to have her own restaurant.

Self-taught, she read everything she could get her hands on, and would go around the street markets of Bangkok, asking how things were made, often being shooed away by busy traders, but still learning about the ingredients and methodology for the craft that would become her calling.