The difficulty of getting halal fish in Finland is what started Mohamed Eid on his path.
After partnering with a similar restaurant in his adopted Scandinavian country, and another one in Switzerland, Mr Eid has started his third seafood restaurant in Dubai.
The motivation for this one was different though.
"I love seafood," says the Egyptian-born entrepreneur. "But here seafood restaurants raise prices to the maximum and they have ordinary dishes."
What sets him apart is that he wants to introduce the idea of sustainable seafood to the nation's restaurant scene.
His restaurant does not serve overfished species. That means hammour, sharri and shark - all local delicacies - "are off his plates and off his patrons" palates.
Called Sea Mood Restaurant, Mr Eid's eatery is among at least 300 seafood restaurants in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, according to a scan on Zomato.com, which compiles restaurant information. But the sustainable angle of his business is what Mr Eid wants to leverage. To do so he has tied up with Choose Wisely, an Abu Dhabi-based campaign run by the Emirates Wildlife Society and World Wild Fund For Nature (WWF).
"Almost 60 per cent of the total fish catch in the UAE are fished beyond sustainable level," said Lisa Perry, the programme director with the Emirates Wildlife Society in association with WWF in the UAE.
"The campaign focuses on consumers and that they can be a part of the solution by making informed decisions."
So, while the campaign started with supermarkets, it soon found out that people go to hotels and restaurants to get their fish fix, and it shifted its target audience.
Hammour, or grouper, is one of the most popular fish on the restaurant scene.
Nearly half of UAE fish consumers order hammour when dining at a restaurant, according to Choose Wisely. The demand means it is overfished by seven times its sustainable level, the association says. In the markets this species fetched Dh29.1 million (US$7.9m) out of Dh104.8m, the total wholesale value of fish landed in Abu Dhabi in 2009.
Despite doing away with such favourites, Mr Eid says he is not losing out on potential revenues.
"It is not really a big effect," he said. "We convince almost 90 per cent of the people who ask for these varieties to eat something else."
The plans reflect his confidence.
Seven sustainable sea food restaurants are on the cards in five years, with another one in Dubai next year.
Choose Wisely, which started in 2010 to protect local fish populations, has teamed up with 15 hotels in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Fujairah, including the Radisson Blu and Al Aqah Beach Resort Hotel; two Dubai supermarket chains, Choithram and Freshly Frozen Food; and two Dubai restaurants, including Sumo Sushi and Bento.
Under the agreement, the association will consult the Sea Mood Restaurant on what fishes to serve, and the restaurant on their part will promote the sustainable idea by not serving overfished and threatened species.
Some of these include kingfish, goldlined seabream and black spot snapper. At the restaurant tucked away in the corner of a building on Mankhool Road among a row of money exchanges and South East Asian restaurants, the Mediterranean fare includes salads, grill, fried fish, tajine and fajita.
Sultan fish, rosetta, shrimp, denis and calamari that go into these come fresh from the local Deira fish market, except for cream dory, which arrives frozen from Thailand.
Opened in late May, the restaurant is already delivering to 320 customers a week, from Karama and Bur Dubai to Jumeirah, and sees 200 dine-in customers a week. Mr Eid is also in talks with the local Egyptian and Iranian clubs to strike a deal with them.
With monthly turnover of Dh45,000, Mr Eid expects to break even this month. His initial investment was around Dh1.1 million.
While Choose Wisely does not require participating restaurants to remove the overfished varieties altogether from their menu, Mr Eid would not have them. "We want to educate as much as we can," Mr Eid says, explaining his choice of location. "And I am a big believer that you can go to the desert for good food."