Here we go again for the 3rd year ... a brand new set of tastes for 2018 ...
here's the FOURTH of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA
(coming to you on sequential Thursdays. All. Year. Long.)!
Establishment: Ikea Restaurant
Location: Sunrise
Meal: Lunch
Drink: New Nordic Fruit Water, Cola flavored
Appetizer: Garlic Bread
Main: Swedish Meatballs
Side(s): Mashed Potatoes with Gravy and Mixed Vegetables
Dessert: Almond Cake
Server: Cafeteria Style
Website: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/store/sunrise/Food_Restaurant
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IKEASunrise/
So many times we've wandered through the carefully constructed maze that is the Ikea experience, marveling at how much one can fit into such small living spaces, wishing we knew Swedish so we could interpret all of the names (or at least understand some of the stick figure style images) -- and yet never before (not back in Chicago from whence we came nor here in the SoFlo where we've been since early 2014) have we been tempted to partake of the items in the cafeteria. Oh sure -- we've smelled a good thing or two as we passed by on each visit ... and you can't exactly miss the meatball signs scattered throughout the place -- but still we didn't stop. That ended this week when we decided to cash in my "free birthday meal" email before it expired at the end of my birthday month (what can I say -- it pays to be "friends and family"). Keep on reading to see how it fared in the old Troy-score:
AMBIANCE: 9/10 (hidden away in a corner of the building with great big windows that showed a view of a giant American flag [and the roof of the parking garage], the seating area offered a number of different sections to break up the crowds and was kept clean despite a high turnover ... and I have to be honest, one thought that crossed my mind as I sat there was that, in the zombie apocalypse, I would want to get my people to clear out the closest Ikea to set up camp there ... anyways -- the one point lost comes from the fact that the seats seemed a little small and weren't Americanized to handle our larger bodies)
FOOD: 7/10 (there were choices for chicken balls and veggie balls, but anyone who knows me already knows that I went for the meatiest of the meatballs from Sweden -- the traditional ones, which were perfectly sized to pop in your mouth whole and which were properly gravied for added flavor ... although I normally don't take gravy on my mashed, getting some on the classic scoop of instant potatoes was the right decision ... and that almond cake was very rich AND very delicious ... the problems though [each resulting in a point deduction] -- the garlic bread was "well done" on one side and barely done on the other, the lingonberries were missing from my plate and that new carbonated soda drink was all fizz in a cup that dissolved into a liquid in a very odd way)
SERVICE: 7/10 (it was literally a cafeteria set up ... wait in line, grab a tray, fill it up with goodies, get to the hot food line and make your choices and then pay your way out of the corral to pick a seat ... so in all, there were only brief interactions with the person who put the meat on your plate, the person who put your sides on your plate and the person who took your money ... in this scenario, the first one got it right, the second one got it all wrong [almost giving me the wrong plate of ... gasp ... veggie balls] and the third one made it better by wishing me a happy birthday as she scanned my email ... so 2/3 positive interactions leads mathematically to a score of 6.67 [rounded up to 7])
BACON: 5/10 (I didn't see bacon anywhere -- not even in the breakfast menu items ... but maybe there were some bits on the salads [there *were* lots of salads, even if I didn't select any] ... because I try to be culturally sensitive, I literally googled "do swedes eat bacon" and the interwebs say that they do -- although clearly they eat more fish than anything else ... so I'm going to give my "culturally sensitive score" of 5 in the hopes that some chief Ikean somewhere reads this and considers adding bacon balls to the ball list)
BONUS: 10/10 (+3 for the little girl who passed by our table at the end of the meal with her daddy, singing along to the "Let It Go" song on the speakers just as we were trying to figure out what tune it was, +3 for my tablemate's dish of chicken fingers and fries [pictured below] which showed up as an adult plate with big pieces of specially breaded chicken and fresh hot fries, +3 for starting the cafeteria line "dessert first", 'cause, you know, priorities and +1 for being a place to which we will return [not that we're running back ... but we will be Ikea-ing again sometime soon ... and we are "friends and family" after all])
TroyScore: 38 out of 50 -- aka 76, a C
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