Guest StuCotts Posted February 13, 2009 Posted February 13, 2009 Tough times for some. Economy is everything, but no reason to give up on quality. I don't know if every Ikea store has a restaurant. The one I patronize occasionally has the best food bargains I know of. All their stuff is scrumptious. The 99-cent breakfast is especially noteworthy. I find the potatoes to be the stars of the breakfast plate, but that may be only because of my potato addiction. The store in Paramus serves breakfast 9:30 - 11 AM. Lunch/dinner go essentially until closing time. Swedish meatballs to salivate over. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/store/paramus/restaurant Their grocery section is also a great source of imported Swedish specialties priced lower than I'd believe possible. Quote
Members TampaYankee Posted February 13, 2009 Members Posted February 13, 2009 Tough times for some. Economy is everything, but no reason to give up on quality. I don't know if every Ikea store has a restaurant. The one I patronize occasionally has the best food bargains I know of. All their stuff is scrumptious. The 99-cent breakfast is especially noteworthy. I find the potatoes to be the stars of the breakfast plate, but that may be only because of my potato addiction. How can you beat that price for breakfast!! Now if they only delivered. Quote
caeron Posted February 14, 2009 Posted February 14, 2009 Crazy cheap eats around Me is costco, but it isn't a real restaurant. Still hard to argue with a 1/4lb hot dog and soda for 1.50. Wish they had a better selection, but I guess that's part of the whole crazy price thing. There is an Ikea, but a 30 minute drive each way takes the fun out of a 99 cent breakfast.... Quote
AdamSmith Posted February 14, 2009 Posted February 14, 2009 Their grocery section is also a great source of imported Swedish specialties priced lower than I'd believe possible. Startlingly good, too. I tried the meatballs in the hot-food line, expecting nothing, and ended up taking home 3 bags of the frozen ones. Credible to serve even beyond the immediate family obligated to eat one's cooking. Unfortunately, or maybe not, Ikea in Boston is for me a 45-minute hike to a far-south suburb. Even longer on weekends, when traffic to the store can stretch the drive to an hour+. Quote
Members nytb Posted February 14, 2009 Members Posted February 14, 2009 And at the IKEA in Elizabeth, NJ (exit 13 on the NJTPK) the restaurant overlooks Newark Liberty Airport and you can watch the planes land and take off. At the Red Hook Brooklyn, all you see from the restaurant is the parking lot and the buses arriving and departing. Quote
Members BigK Posted February 15, 2009 Members Posted February 15, 2009 I also endorse Costco's $1.50 1/4 lb hot dog and soda. I often plan my Costco run for mid day to enjoy this cheap lunch. Quote
Guest mineallmine Posted February 15, 2009 Posted February 15, 2009 Oh the Ikea sweedish meatballs are a definate must when you visit the store. I also really love their housewears section. I much like the rest of you am about 30-40 minutes away from an Ikea though. Never had their breakfast though...sounds like I might have to try it sometime! Quote
Guest StuCotts Posted February 15, 2009 Posted February 15, 2009 and ended up taking home 3 bags of the frozen ones. Credible to serve even beyond the immediate family obligated to eat one's cooking. You cook too? It's definitely the only way to eat well without spending a fortune. But doing it only for reasons of economy would make it drudgery. I cook because I love to. From scratch. To hell with Sandra Lee. I'm blessed with a prep man who is the best. He makes my work easy. All I have to do is bang the pots and pans around and make it delicious for for both of us. I do everything that time permits. Even as I type I have a focaccia in the oven. I'm not insensitive to the importance of having somebody to cook for. For me, it's one more of my too many ways of spoiling my men. Making dinner for one doesn't have that dimension in its favor. But that doesn't discredit my basic point that cooking at home, if you can engineer it, is a lot better and cheaper than eating out. Quote
AdamSmith Posted February 15, 2009 Posted February 15, 2009 You cook too? It's definitely the only way to eat well without spending a fortune. One has to eat. And eating well is the cornerstone of living well. The best of the best revenge. But doing it only for reasons of economy would make it drudgery. I cook because I love to. From scratch. To hell with Sandra Lee. Without question. Lemme balance my praise of premade frozen meatballs. My favorite thing, driven by my & my S.O.'s typical schedules of getting home from the mills at 8pm, was training myself in making something vunnerful from scratch in 30 minutes. Franey's 60-Minute Gourmet was just the conceptual tip-off; sautes, high-temp roasting, all kinds of ways to execute great food in a flash. And no question -- eating well in one's own environment can outdo all but maybe 4 or 5 restaurant evenings I've ever sat through. Quote
Guest StuCotts Posted February 15, 2009 Posted February 15, 2009 Lemme balance my praise of premade frozen meatballs. My favorite thing, driven by my & my S.O.'s typical schedules of getting home from the mills at 8pm, was training myself in making something vunnerful from scratch in 30 minutes. Franey's 60-Minute Gourmet was just the conceptual tip-off; sautes, high-temp roasting, all kinds of ways to execute great food in a flash. No need to justify anything. For too long I had to work within the constraints you describe, and worse. Now I'm at the happier stage of being able to spend more time on what I want to do than on what I have to do. That translates to a lot of overtime for the kitchen equipment, to mention only that. Quote
AdamSmith Posted February 15, 2009 Posted February 15, 2009 No need to justify anything. Har. My defensiveness comes of growing up parented by the Campbell's Soup generation, those legions of postwar housewives brainwashed or nearly by General Foods, General Mills et al. into seeing canned & packaged foods as not just more convenient but even tastier & more nutritious than the real thing. Driven by the food conglomerates' requirement after 1945 to find something to do with their suddenly unneeded K-ration production capacity. (It strikes me that I pulled the phrase above from a hilarious reversal in H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," where the narrator finds himself stranded overnight in a decaying Massachusetts North Shore town where the townspeople are a strange, repellent breed that almost (!) seem to have somehow gotten fish DNA into their makeup... ...Since the grocery was closed, I was forced to patronise the restaurant I had shunned before; a stooped, narrow-headed man with staring, unwinking eyes, and a flat-nosed wench with unbelievably thick, clumsy hands being in attendance. The service was all of the counter type, and it relieved me to find that much was evidently served from cans and packages. A bowl of vegetable soup with crackers was enough for me, and I soon headed back for my cheerless room at the Gilman; getting an evening paper and a fly-specked magazine from the evil-visaged clerk at the rickety stand beside his desk... http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/li...as/shadowin.htm) a lot of overtime for the kitchen equipment, to mention only that. Furthering my envy of your general situation. Quote
