Dubai restaurant owner dishes out a day to remember for labourers

Restaurateur offers 9 lucky workers a taste of home and a ride to and from his restaurant in a stretch limo.

Labourers sit with restauranteur Raza Abbas at Swaadish restaurant for a special dinner. Navin Khianey for The National

DUBAI // Nine lucky labourers enjoyed the taste of home and a VIP experience in a limousine thanks to a Dubai restaurant owner.

Raza Abbas, who owns Swaadish restaurant in The Mall, opposite Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Umm Suqeim, invited the men to visit his eaterie, where he cooked their favourite dishes from their various home countries.

“I got this idea after casually enquiring with a bunch of labourers from a construction site in my neighbourhood. I got a sense that what they missed the most is food cooked by their wife or mother back home,” said the 27-year-old restaurateur.

Mr Abbas said his guests’ wish-list ranged from south Indian delicacies to north Indian mughlai food.

“One of my guests from Odisha wished to eat kaakra, which is an occasional dish made out of coconut filling and semolina dumplings cooked at the yearly pooja (religious event) in Bengal. Others wished to eat delicacies such as mutton karahi, biryani, palak paneer, tikka and kebabs,” he said of his guests, who were selected at random from a nearby construction site.

Labourer Nadeem Abbas was delighted to eat his favourite dishes – sabzi gosht (mutton curry with vegetables) and chicken tikka - both of which he had not tasted for years.

“I hadn’t enjoyed my favourite food for ages. In fact, I had almost forgotten the taste of it,” said the 28-year-old Pakistani, who works as an electrical technician in Dubai.

Aside from organising a lavish dinner for the workers, Mr Abbas also arranged for them to be picked up and dropped off in a Dodge Challenger stretch limousine.

“By booking a limo, I thought it would give them an opportunity to spend a few moments cherishing the luxury lifestyle and this might inspire them to work even harder to improve their standard of living,” he said.

However, Harkeswar Maji was reluctant to sit inside the limo as it looked too good to be true. “I was scared that the owner of this beautiful car would get angry if I got near it. I never imagined me or anyone from my family could ever sit in a limousine,” said the 30-year-old Indian bricklayer. “I miss my family a lot but it was a dream day.”

Mr Abbas also gave a goody bag to each of his guests, with contents including cinema vouchers. “Most of them were planning to watch the recent Bollywood film Sultan,” he said, adding that more restaurateurs in Dubai should host such activities for labourers.

“Big or small, anything that manages to bring a smile on the faces of these well-deserving people should be done, and done more often, too.”