Irene Jiang / Business Insider
I wouldn't eat Ikea's chicken tenders again.
- I went to the Ikea store in Brooklyn, New York, to eat everything on the restaurant's menu.
- I ate vegetable soup, blackberry and blue cheese salad, gravlax, coleslaw, chicken tenders, Swedish meatballs, salmon balls, veggie balls, a salmon dinner, marzipan cake, and chocolate conspiracy cake.
- Some dishes blew me away, but I'd never order the chicken tenders again.
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There's always a bad egg.
In the case of Ikea's food, the bad egg is chicken. Chicken tenders, to be exact.
I ate every item at Ikea's restaurant, including chicken tenders, soup, salad, coleslaw, gravlax, a salmon dinner, veggie balls, salmon balls, meatballs, marzipan cake, and chocolate conspiracy cake.
There was a wide range of quality, with gravlax and the meatballs at the very top. I wasn't a huge fan of the soup or the veggie balls, which were both largely unsatisfying.
However, nothing appalled me quite like the chicken tenders.
I usually do like chicken tenders. In college, my best friend and I would frequently visit a grilled cheese restaurant in our college town just for their chicken tenders. I often crave those now.
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What makes a good chicken tender is an even outer crisp (fried at a high temperature) and juicy chicken on the inside that's neither over- nor undercooked. I've had overcooked chicken tenders in my day, but nothing quite like Ikea's desiccated strips.
Perhaps what made these worse was my anticipation: I was looking forward to a reasonably crispy and juicy chicken tender, but my first bite revealed nothing but disappointment.
Irene Jiang / Business Insider
The battered coating itself was crispy enough, but the chicken underneath felt like it had been left out under a heat lamp for days. It was too hard to even bite - I had to rip and gnaw at the "tender" like a dog at a bone.
The chicken tasted of nothing but salt and breadcrumbs, and I had to wash out my mouth with some of the accompanying fries. Those were crispy on the outside and soft inside like the chicken should have been.
I tried both tenders to make sure the bad tender wasn't just a fluke. It wasn't.
Now is the winter of my discontent with Ikea's chicken tenders. It's even more surprising to me that Ikea's chicken tenders are so terrible when its restaurant does a better job on many of its more complex dishes.
Chicken tenders are a staple of every kid's (and joyful adult's) menu. Ikea's restaurant does so much else right - its chicken tenders deserve the same treatment.
Irene Jiang / Business Insider