Julbord at Ikea

So as hinted previously, we went to the Ikea Swedish Christmas feast, or Julbord, on Friday evening. To be honest, it was sort of like this: Ikea particle board furniture is to hand-crafted, imported fancy-schmancy furniture as Ikea Julbord is to chef-prepared, fancy-schmancy upscale restaurant dinner. It just wasn't that good. But. But! The spirit of the whole affair was lovely and cheerful; the meal sold out, there were folks in traditional Swedish apparel (sadly, no one with a wreath of candles on her head as I so often had dreamed of donning as a girl), and live music. Much of the meal came from the frozen Swedish staples from the Food Store in Ikea. It was nice to get to try many of them. It turns out the potato gratin is deceptively tasty but has a permeating herring flavor on the finish (disagreeable to some, embraced by others?). The smoked salmon was delicious and the accompanying sauce was a wake-you-up horseradish number. The bottom line: it was fun to check out, very affordable, but probably not a do-again event.