Text 2222, 76 rader
Skriven 2008-02-11 15:17:46 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
Ärende: Eating at IKEA
======================
IKEA is well known for their well-designed, affordable home 
furnishings (many of which need to be assembled by the consumer.) 
But their stores also have small cafeteria-style restaurants 
where you can take a break and buy some lunch or a snack 
after winding through the cavernous showroom and marketplace.

On a recent Saturday, we took a drive to the IKEA store in
 New Haven, Connecticut. Although the purpose of the visit 
was to pick up a few small necessities for the house and to 
check out kitchen cabinet design for an eventual remodeling, 
we happened to be there at lunchtime, so we stopped at the cafe.

The cafeteria is just about the only part of the building with 
windows, and the combination of light colors, bright metallics, 
and simple furniture design gives it a bright, airy, relaxing 
atmosphere that adds to the "refreshment factor." The 
selection is limited - I think there were five or six main 
selections along with a single soup choice and a variety of 
desserts - but that's to be expected at a retail store's 
lunch counter.

Although the store was busy the day we were there, the cafe 
was relatively quiet. One of the service islands was closed 
and there was only a single cashier. But the help was quick, 
efficient, and polite and lines were short and fast-moving 
as customers made their selections and brought the cafeteria 
trays to the register for payment.

Selections included Atlantic Salmon with dill, Swedish 
Meatballs, and fried chicken fingers; my wife and daughter 
both opted for the Swedish Meatballs and I decided to have 
the Garden Vegetable Soup with a dinner roll and butter.

The Swedish Meatball platter was pretty much as expected - 
about a dozen small and quite delicious Swedish meatballs, 
nice balance of meat and filler, pleasantly seasoned. They 
were topped with a light brown gravy that most certainly 
from a packet and which had a distinctive soy-like flavor 
to it (quite like Maggi sauce bottled for the American 
market.) Sides included roughly mashed red potatoes (creamy 
and delicious with chunks of unmashed potatoes and potato 
skins mixed throughout) and lingonberry preserves (sweet 
and tart, loaded with whole berries, quite a bit like 
cranberry sauce.) For dessert, the ladies also selected a 
wonderful apple cake: a two-inch-deep graham cracker crumb 
crust filled with big chunks of stewed apples, topped with 
a buttercrumb crust and vanilla custard sauce. It was much 
more like a deep-dish pie or apple tart than a "cake."

The Garden Vegetable Soup was also very pleasant, although 
once again it was obviously an "envelope" soup; the broth 
had the distinctive flavor of reconstituted soup mixes, and 
the potatoes had been quite obviously dehydrated. But it 
had been enriched with frozen lima beans and corn, as well 
as lices of fresh zucchini and yellow summer squash. The 
weather outside was cold and rainy, and the hot soup was 
particularly welcome.

The dinner roll was nothing special, pretty standard stuff.

That bottle of Kristian Regale was interesting, though. It 
was a lightly sparkling lingonberry/apple drink, light and 
quenching, with a delicious tart taste that once again 
reminded me of cranberries. Interestingly enough, the 
bottle said it was a product of Spain.

Extremely reasonably priced, lunch for the three of us, 
including drinks, came to about $20.

Blogged with photos at
http://davescupboard.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-goes-to-ikea-to-eat.html

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Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, 
minutus carborata descendum pantorum
 * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)