To most of the world, shopping at Ikea is no big deal. For someone who was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada (an Ikea-less zone) it was a revelation and my newest obsession.
To the Ikea uninitiated out there, Ikea is a home store extraordinaire. They have furniture, house wares, cookware, linens, pictures, decorative accessories, toys, even pet beds! The store is a massive two story structure so large that there are arrows directing you which way to go. They provide you with pencils, paper and even measuring tape to take with you as you peruse the displays. You can write down the aisle and bin number of the items you want to pick up in the self serve areas downstairs. You can look at a display and say, “gee, I like that bed, I think I’ll buy it” and write down the bed number. But if you are decorating challenged and you have ever seen a display and thought, “gosh, I wish I could just buy that whole room, I’d take it all”, well at Ikea you can do just that. There is a sticker on the ROOM to tell you how much it is!
If you have never been to an Ikea before and are planning your first visit, allow yourself about 6 hours. Yes, it will take you that long, longer even if you are with someone else. I suppose it is possible, if you have been to the store a bajillion times, to “just run in and pick something up real quick”. It is also possible to visit the Wynn buffet and “just grab a little salad” but it’s not very probable. Plan your visit with ample time to ooh, aah, and exclaim.
They are pretty smart, those Swedes who designed Ikea. They know it takes a long time to really look around, see everything, make decisions, to figure out what will fit where. So they put in a cafeteria style restaurant with delicious food at reasonable prices so that you can fuel up for the buying portion of your visit. There is a pretty limited menu of mostly Swedish inspired dishes with a daily special that runs the gamut depending on the Ikea location. Just trust me, get the Swedish Meatballs. A plate of 15 of them, served with a cream sauce, boiled potatoes and lingonberry sauce is only $4.99 with larger and smaller orders priced accordingly. There was also a luscious looking open faced shrimp sandwich that looked oh, so European (it was just a sliced hard boiled egg topped with shrimp and a dollop of mayo and a sprig of dill on dark bread but you rarely see open faced cold sandwiches in the USA.) The meatballs are small, dense and delicious with a hint of spice and a delicious cream sauce. You can add soup or salad for a dollar more but since I was in a Swedish mood I added a piece of Daim torte, a dessert thingy that looked like caramel and nut torte. It turns out that Daim is a Swedish candy bar with “crisp caramel”. Whatever it was, it was delicious! While it is cafeteria style and you have to bus your won tables, the food is served on real plates with real flatware and real glasses for your beverage in an open, airy window filled place that has a lovely little area to corral the small tykes.
Okay so being in California without a semi-truck to carry my booty back I had to stick to the small stuff, so in my 45 dollar splurge I bought: 8 mirrors, 4 mini mixing bowls, a wastebasket, a dried flower arrangement, 2 candles, a bamboo curtain and a really cute dog butt hook. (No, it’s not a hook to hang a dog from, it’s a hook that looks like the rear end of a dog, with the tail as a hanger.) If I’d had a truck I found 2 bookcases, a wardrobe and a dining set that I loved. I then spent another 15 bucks on a bag of the frozen meatballs, 3 packs of cream sauce mix, a jar of lingonberries and an insulated bag to bring it all home in.
I made a batch of the meatballs on Friday and they were just as delicious as they were at the store. Now I’m obsessed with them. I need more. So if you want to know what I want for Christmas, I want 3 bags of Ikea frozen meatballs and a case of sauce packets. Lingonberries optional. But I’ve been a really good girl this year, so if it’s too much for you to go to Ikea for me, you could just petition the Swedes to put one in Vegas, and I’ll get my own!
To the Ikea uninitiated out there, Ikea is a home store extraordinaire. They have furniture, house wares, cookware, linens, pictures, decorative accessories, toys, even pet beds! The store is a massive two story structure so large that there are arrows directing you which way to go. They provide you with pencils, paper and even measuring tape to take with you as you peruse the displays. You can write down the aisle and bin number of the items you want to pick up in the self serve areas downstairs. You can look at a display and say, “gee, I like that bed, I think I’ll buy it” and write down the bed number. But if you are decorating challenged and you have ever seen a display and thought, “gosh, I wish I could just buy that whole room, I’d take it all”, well at Ikea you can do just that. There is a sticker on the ROOM to tell you how much it is!
If you have never been to an Ikea before and are planning your first visit, allow yourself about 6 hours. Yes, it will take you that long, longer even if you are with someone else. I suppose it is possible, if you have been to the store a bajillion times, to “just run in and pick something up real quick”. It is also possible to visit the Wynn buffet and “just grab a little salad” but it’s not very probable. Plan your visit with ample time to ooh, aah, and exclaim.
They are pretty smart, those Swedes who designed Ikea. They know it takes a long time to really look around, see everything, make decisions, to figure out what will fit where. So they put in a cafeteria style restaurant with delicious food at reasonable prices so that you can fuel up for the buying portion of your visit. There is a pretty limited menu of mostly Swedish inspired dishes with a daily special that runs the gamut depending on the Ikea location. Just trust me, get the Swedish Meatballs. A plate of 15 of them, served with a cream sauce, boiled potatoes and lingonberry sauce is only $4.99 with larger and smaller orders priced accordingly. There was also a luscious looking open faced shrimp sandwich that looked oh, so European (it was just a sliced hard boiled egg topped with shrimp and a dollop of mayo and a sprig of dill on dark bread but you rarely see open faced cold sandwiches in the USA.) The meatballs are small, dense and delicious with a hint of spice and a delicious cream sauce. You can add soup or salad for a dollar more but since I was in a Swedish mood I added a piece of Daim torte, a dessert thingy that looked like caramel and nut torte. It turns out that Daim is a Swedish candy bar with “crisp caramel”. Whatever it was, it was delicious! While it is cafeteria style and you have to bus your won tables, the food is served on real plates with real flatware and real glasses for your beverage in an open, airy window filled place that has a lovely little area to corral the small tykes.
Okay so being in California without a semi-truck to carry my booty back I had to stick to the small stuff, so in my 45 dollar splurge I bought: 8 mirrors, 4 mini mixing bowls, a wastebasket, a dried flower arrangement, 2 candles, a bamboo curtain and a really cute dog butt hook. (No, it’s not a hook to hang a dog from, it’s a hook that looks like the rear end of a dog, with the tail as a hanger.) If I’d had a truck I found 2 bookcases, a wardrobe and a dining set that I loved. I then spent another 15 bucks on a bag of the frozen meatballs, 3 packs of cream sauce mix, a jar of lingonberries and an insulated bag to bring it all home in.
I made a batch of the meatballs on Friday and they were just as delicious as they were at the store. Now I’m obsessed with them. I need more. So if you want to know what I want for Christmas, I want 3 bags of Ikea frozen meatballs and a case of sauce packets. Lingonberries optional. But I’ve been a really good girl this year, so if it’s too much for you to go to Ikea for me, you could just petition the Swedes to put one in Vegas, and I’ll get my own!
No comments:
Post a Comment