Lunch at Ikea

You know the deal: you move and all of a sudden you need bits and pieces of crap. And where else would you go to find said bits and pieces of crap besides Ikea (if you have one available to you, and I do now)? Luckily, my dad loves Ikea and whenever he's down here, he likes to go there and putter around for a few hours. He particularly likes Ikea's cafeteria. He drove me back from the Kootenays when I went to visit last month, and he stayed a few extra days to visit with my brother & SIL. I needed bits and pieces of crap for my new place, and Dad wanted to putter around. He also loves Ikea's food section & buys coffee beans from there whenever he can. We spent over 3 hours in Ikea one rainy afternoon, and started out with lunch.

There really wasn't anything on the menu that appealed to me, so I went with this Naiad Salad plate consisting of gravalax and a root vegetable salad in a citrus vinaigrette. It was accompanied by two crackers. For dessert, I had a piece of apple cake.

The salmon dish cost $7.95 or something ridiculous like that, and it came with a lot of gravalax! You wouldn't be able to buy that amount of salmon lox in the grocery store for that price. It was very good as was the root vegetable salad. The apple cake was OK. My dad had a bunch of things but I didn't get a picture. He was very happy indeed. Until we had to try to fit a flat-packed bookcase in his Subaru. But that's another story. :)

Vancouver Food, Part 1

Busy times! Last week, I returned from a trip to Vancouver to visit friends & family. I have a ton of photos, so it's hard to sort out where to start.

How about Ikea?

What is a trip to the coast without a stop at Ikea? My dad loves Ikea, particularly their food section. He loves their coffee and he stocked up big time. He also likes their bread mixes, and so do I, so he bought a few of those, too. Dad really likes the Ikea cafeteria, for reasons I just don't get. Yeah, it's inexpensive, but I was at the coast - I wanted to have lunch somewhere more "coasty". We compromised by having a snack at the cafeteria (which is oddly very similar to the BC Ferries cafeterias) and going somewhere else for lunch.

So, here is what we had.

My SIL had this chocolate torte thingy that you can buy whole in the frozen section of the food part of the store. She said it was pretty good. She downed it with a lingonberry juice.

My dad had this bran muffin that had an odd shape. He downed it with some of his favourite Ikea coffee. I have been advised that when I go to Van in June (which is in the works) that should I pass by Ikea, I am go to in and buy Dad a huge stockpile of coffee and bread mixes.

I had an Ikea cinnamon bun. It was OK. I've had way better, which you will hear about in the future!