Swedish Veggie Balls at IKEA, free coffee and tea at Bed Bath Beyond

At IKEA in Paramus, 8 Veggie Balls are served with stewed lentils and steamed vegetables for $4.49.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You can always eat cheaply in the family restaurant at the IKEA home-furnishings store in Paramus.

Eating well is another matter, as I found out the other day when I ordered an 8-piece Veggie Ball platter for lunch ($4.49). 

Instead of the mashed potatoes and beef gravy that come with the pork-and-beef Swedish Meatballs, the Veggie Ball lunch comes with a tasty lentil stew and steamed vegetables, which retained some crunch,

The Veggie Balls themselves were filling, but hard, dry and not particularly tasty; maybe they were on the steam table too long.

They are supposed to contain carrot, corn and kale.

I did better on my visit to the IKEA Restaurant last month, when I was bowled over by the Smoked Salmon Sandwich.

At the Bed, Bath & Beyond across the parking garage from IKEA, you'll find an entire wall of free Keurig samples and machines for brewing 10-ounce cups of coffee or tea. And there are a couple of tables with high stools for relaxing with your favorite beverage.

Details

IKEA is at 100 Ikea Drive, and Bed Bath & Beyond is at 300 Ikea Drive in Paramus. Both are closed on Sundays.

A big, bustling family restaurant where no entree costs more than $6.99

A Smoked Salmon Sandwich is served on a wild-garlic sourdough bun with salad greens, pickled red cabbage, spicy barbecue glaze, and sweet and sour pickles for only $4.99 in the stylish restaurant at IKEA in Paramus, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When you're hungry in Paramus -- the shopping center capital of New Jersey -- you can't beat the bargain meals in the restaurant at IKEA, a maze-like home furnishings store.

Swedish Meatballs aren't the only draw.

Breakfast -- eggs, turkey sausage, potatoes, pancakes and strawberry jam -- is served until 11 a.m. for only $2.

Starting at 5 p.m., you can enjoy a dinner entree of antibiotic-free chicken with mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables for only $4.

Baked salmon with a side dish is $6.99.

I met a friend for lunch there on Thursday, when an adult purchasing an entree for $3.99 or more could get two kids' meals for free (regularly $2.49 each).

Predictably, the place was packed with happy families noisily bonding over food.

IKEA calls the enormous dining room a restaurant, but you'll have to grab a tray and wait on a cafeteria line, walking past displays of prepared food in cold cases or wait to be served from a steam table.

Salmon two ways

If you've ever shopped at IKEA for home furnishings, you know the maze-like store requires a lot of energy, and even with a map, many people feel like they are walking in circles.

So, you can look at the inexpensive restaurant fare as necessary to fortify you for the upcoming shopping ordeal.

I went for IKEA's delicious farmed salmon two ways:

A shredded Smoked Salmon Sandwich that combines sweet, sour and savory flavors, and a platter of tasty Marinated Salmon with spring mix and a dill dressing, which was too sweet for me ($4.99 each).

My friend enjoyed the classic Swedish Meatballs swimming in gravy with mashed potatoes and lingonberries, also $4.99. He also had one garlic toast (69 cents).

We washed down our lunches with big cans of carbonated Pear Cider and Apple Cider ($1.99 each.)

About 1:15 on Thursday afternoon, a serpentine cafeteria line at IKEA took about 15 minutes to get through and to pay at a register. There are two separate lines, and tray holders on wheels are available.

An appetizer of Marinated Salmon with fresh dill, spring mix, a lemon wedge and mustard sauce was $4.99, above and below.

A 16.9-ounce can of carbonated Pear Cider was $1.99. Apple Cider also was available.

This bill of fare is displayed at the foot of the escalator that takes you up to the restaurant. Thursday was the last day kids' meals were free every day. Now, free kids' meals, shown on the right, are available only on Tuesdays. The restaurant is closed on Sundays.

IKEA pledges that all food waste is used for composting or biogas.

At the height of the lunch hour on Thursday, a homeless man made himself at home in the IKEA dining room.

Details

IKEA, 100 IKEA Drive, Paramus; 1-201-843-1881. Free garage parking. Closed Sundays.

In addition to the restaurant, the store has a Bistro serving hot dogs and similar items, and a Swedish Food Market, both on the lower level.

IKEA is an acronym made up of the founder's name, and the farm and village where he grew up in Sweden.

In mall capital of Paramus, IKEA's four-letter days spell 'free food'

Image via Wikipedia

IKEA offers a real alternative to fast food.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The restaurant-cafe in the IKEA store in Paramus has always been known for good food at reasonable prices. 

Now, the store is offering a free breakfast on Mondays and free meals for kids on Tuesdays, plus a lower price for its traditional Swedish meatballs. 

As you'd expect, a line of about 15 to 20 people formed not long after 9:30 a.m. opening today. 

There were young, old, white, black, Hispanic and Asian customers, some with kids in tow -- reflecting the demographics of North Jersey.

The free breakfast -- usually 99 cents -- includes scrambled eggs, potatoes and bacon or sausage, as well as unlimited coffee, and it's served until 11 a.m.

I got two ice-cream scoops of eggs and a large metal spoon's worth of potatoes, but I asked the counter guy to hold the meat.

A dish of organic pasta with sauce -- normally $1.99 -- is 99 cents on Mondays after 11 a.m.

On Tuesdays, kids can get any of three combination meals for free -- meatballs, chicken tenders or mac and cheese -- including a drink. Normally, they are $2.49. 

In Paramus, free meals for kids are available every day through Aug. 21, according to the Web site.

A hot dog and soda in the Bistro is $1 on Fridays -- a price cut of 50 cents. 

Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, cream sauce and ligonberries are now $2.99, compared to $3.29 last year.

For $4.99, you can get cold-smoked and marinated salmon with lime-accented vegetables, and 69 cents buys coffee and a Swedish coffee roll.

You're expected to clear your own table, but the dining room is a pleasant space, flooded with natural light from a 15-foot-high glass wall.

The IKEA in Elizabeth has an outdoor dining space opposite the runaways of Newark Liberty International Airport.

On Aug. 19, I won't miss the all-you-can-eat Crayfish Party at the Paramus store, starting at 6 p.m.

Crayfish, cheese, shrimp, boiled potatoes and other items will be $9.99 a person, $2.49 for kids. Advance tickets are recommended.

An employee on the breakfast line this morning said the free breakfast is designed to lure customers into the store on the slowest day of the week.

But you can also see it as IKEA trying to make amends for driving customers crazy with all the furniture that requires assembly.


IKEA Food, 100 IKEA Drive, Paramus; 201-843-1881.

Restaurant-cafe hours: 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Mondays-Thursdays; 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. Closed Sundays.

Charities stand vigil at checkout counter

Image via Wikipedia

Planting a tree.

At Costco in Hackensack, you're asked if you want to contribute to a children's hospital. At IKEA in Paramus, you can ring up your own purchases and, for $1, plant a tree.

At these and other stores, charities have their hands out -- and customers who might be spending liberally on food or throw pillows, don't want to seem cheap.

I haven't been asked to contribute to a charity at ShopRite recently, and I've never been asked at Trader Joe's or Fairway Market in Paramus. (The latter two also don't give you anything for a reusable bag.)

Last Friday, I shopped for food at Costco and was asked to contribute to a children's hospital whose name I can't recall. I gave $5.

The next day, I returned with my wife to make sure I bought the right silver ring she wanted for Mother's Day.

When I found myself behind shoppers with overstuffed baskets, I asked an employee who had a closed sign on her checkout counter if she would handle my single item -- the voucher for the ring.

Sure, she said, if I contributed $1 to the same hospital I gave to on Friday. Of course, I agreed, and upped that to $3.

I drove to IKEA today to get a $3.98 refund on two, unopened jars of herring that had loads of sodium in them, and picked up two throw pillows, snack crackers my wife asked for and imported tubes of crab pate and smoked cod-egg spread.

At the self-checkout, I was asked for my zip code and if I wanted to plant a tree for $1. How could a tree-hugger like me refuse?

I don't even know if that's in the United States or Sweden.

About that imported herring with loads of sodium. I e-mailed the company last week, expressing my concern, and have heard nothing.

A salty fish tale from Sweden by way of IKEA in Paramus

Image via Wikipedia

I wish IKEA would flag the high salt content in its jars of marinated herring.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I was delighted to find jars of raw, marinated herring in IKEA's Swedish Food Market in Paramus, but when I looked at the nutrition labels at home, I was horrified by all the salt I would be consuming.

I bought four kinds: in garlic sauce, in mustard sauce, in dill sauce and with onion and carrot. The jars are 8.8 ounces each, not 5.1 ounces, as I wrote in a previous post, and four were on sale for $6.

A serving size is five small pieces of herring, but the sodium content ranges from 29% to 62% of the recommended daily intake -- or 700 milligrams to 1,500 milligrams of salt.

The herring in mustard sauce has the lowest salt content: 19% of the recommended daily intake.

I just finished the herring in garlic sauce, and wonder if I can return the others and exchange them for mustard sauce or get a refund.

IKEA, 100 IKEA Drive, Paramus. Closed Sundays. Free garage parking.

  

H Mart renewal

The H Mart in Englewood -- smallest of the Korean chain's four supermarkets in Bergen County -- has received a much-needed makeover.

After I moved to Hackensack from Englewood, I stopped going there and started shopping at H Marts in Little Ferry and Fort Lee, the newest.

My eyes popped when I walked into the Englewood store today: New coats of paint, bright lights and the word "Fresh" spelled out several times in big letters on the walls, next to colorful illustrations of food.

The selling area was expanded by pushing checkout counters closer to the front of the store.

H Mart's produce quality had dipped, but now it is back to being among the best selections in North Jersey. And prices are very competitive.

I picked up fresh collard greens for 99 cents a pound. At the fish counter, I chose fresh, whole porgy ($2.99 a pound) from among more than two dozen whole fish on ice.

Three pounds of Earthbound Farm organic gala apples were $3.49.

It would be terrific if the dowdy Little Ferry store got the same makeover.

H Mart, 25 Lafayette Ave., Englewood; 201-871-8822.

'We're too small, so please throw us back'

Image via Wikipedia

As I was plowing my way through 25 or 30 crayfish Friday night at Ikea in Parmaus, I was struck by how, at three to four inches long, they looked just like miniature lobsters. Maybe they refused to grow up, thinking they would be hard to catch or get thrown back. No such luck.

The crayfish party is an end-of-summer ritual in Sweden, where they are washed down with plenty of beer. In the Paramus home-furnishing store, a pamphlet on the dining tables had beer-drinking songs, but the $9.99 all-you-can-eat admission ticket included soft drinks, not beer; Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes, cheese and crackers, and desserts ($2.49 for kids).

Crayfish, also called crawfish, are served hot in New Orleans after cooking and turning red in a spicy, lip-smacking boil. The Swedes boil them and serve them cold -- on ice. Pretty much the only part you eat is the tail, and sucking on the cold bodies returns little flavor. This may explain why there were empty tables.

After two plates of crayfish, I joined the cafeteria line for the free meatballs and mashed potatoes (hold the cream sauce), but I didn't like the texture of the meatballs and started wondering where the meat came from. So I finished my meal with those delicious crayfish tails.