Irene Jiang / Business Insider
I ate everything at IKEA's restaurant, and the best dish blew me away.
- I went to the IKEA in Red Hook 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.
- There were some real winners and losers in the mix, but the gravlax - traditional Scandinavian cured salmon with dill - was by far the best dish.
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When you enter IKEA, you must brace yourself for a long, harrowing journey.
You'll traverse vast plains of pillows and particle board, surmount towers of glassware, and puzzle your way through labyrinths of mood lightning before you can emerge victorious at the checkout aisle.
Any such journey requires sustenance, and since Sweden hasn't figured out how to make elf bread yet, IKEA offers the next best thing: its cafeteria-style restaurant in the middle of the store.
I've been an occasional (who goes furniture shopping on a regular basis?) of IKEA's cafeteria since the late 90s, when my mom would drag pint-sized me on furniture trips.
I used to dread visits to IKEA, lest I be marooned in the play area with TVs that always seemed to be playing the animated "Alvin and the Chipmunks" series on Cartoon Network. But after enduring several hours of torture via singing cartoon rodent, I could sometimes guilt trip my mom into buying me a plate of IKEA meatballs.
Read more: I ate the same meal at both Texas Roadhouse and Outback Steakhouse, and one was the clear winner.
IKEA's Swedish-ish meatballs are perhaps the furniture giant's most iconic dish. But are they its only dish? Far from it.
In fact, IKEA has two other kinds of balls: salmon and veggie. And in fact, IKEA even has cake, chocolate, chicken tenders, fries, salad, soup, and gravlax - traditional Scandinavian cured salmon with dill - among other things.
I decided to return to IKEA with the new goal of trying all the food at its restaurant. Like Frodo and Gandalf at the end of "The Lord of the Rings" sailing off to the Undying Lands, I embarked upon the 20-minute ferry ride from Battery Park to Red Hook ready for my next adventure.