French Fry Diary 40: IKEA… Fries?

I wish I could be more positive about this one, but I just can’t. Finding French fries in new and interesting places is a pleasure and an adventure. It is truly one of the best parts of this job – unless they suck, and trust me, IKEA fries do indeed suck.

For those not in the know, IKEA is that funky Scandinavian place with all the cool furniture that sometimes can drive you insane putting it together by yourself when you get home. For quite some time I have been hearing rumors that IKEA also had a restaurant, and that the food was really quite good. As you can imagine, my first thought was of the fries, so I set out to try them.

Now mind you, I had been warned. I was told repeatedly that the fries at IKEA were bad, even crappy, and that I wouldn’t like them. But, I have a duty here, and like my friend Ben, I decided I had to try them, so you won’t have to.

These are really crappy fries. Wow. Yeah, really crappy. IKEA fries are diner quality regular cuts with lotsa batter, like lotsa batter in the manner of the old KFC Extra Crispy chicken recipe, and that’s not a good thing. This is truly the invisicoat from Hell. Once you get through the coating there’s a processed mashed potato taste inside. Not hot, barely warm, and served cafeteria style, these are probably the worst fries I’ve had in quite some time. I barely ate more than half a dozen of the wretched things in the photo shown. And then I couldn’t even give the rest away.

Friends assure me that the mashed potatoes are good, and I myself can attest to the ‘cholad ljus’ chocolate bar being quite tasty, and some of the furniture at IKEA is great – but whatever you do, stay away from these crappy fries.