Ikea - any worthy treats I should purchase?

I am having an Ikean furniture building party and would like to provide my friends with Ikea treats - I know it is cheesey, but it should be fun!

What is worthy of purchasing to take home? How is the princess cake?

Thanks!

[iwakura42]

Cloudberry preserves! I haven't seen them for sale anywhere else, and they are *delicious*. A little pricey, but you'll get way more satisfaction from it than from three jars of smuckers' raspberry or strawberry.

[rabaja]

In the freezer section they have cooked and cleaned crawfish. They are pretty inexpensive (maybe $8? It's been a while), and very good on pizza or in pasta. A nice thing to keep around in your own freezer!

If you don't find what you want at Ikea, you can fake it by buying Swedish food elsewhere.

Any type of freshly pickled herring from a fish store.
Nova salmon
Alpine lace type cheeses, butter and flatbread.
herring roe spread w/dill (sold in some specialty stores) on flatbread
baked ham
green vegetables w/butter
shrimp salad

good cold beers

[Das Ubergeek]

And potatoes. It's only a mockery of Swedish food if you don't have small potatoes, boiled whole in their skins, with butter and either dill or parsley.

I've posted this before but it's truly amazing. Go to the cafeteria and try the mango sorbet in little hollowed out mango shells. It's the best sorbet I've ever had. EVER EVER EVER Truly. In the grocery section try the frozen salmon and buy the dill sauce in jars to go with. Just delish!

Their rye crispbread is the best. Some of the smoked / preserved fish products are delicious but watch out for the ones with sugar.

Meatballs and gravy are mediocre cafeteria food.

The fancy-looking decorated sweets are truly awful.

Wondering why to avoid the preserved fish products with sugar. Sugar is a common ingredient in a traditional gravlax cure.

You'd be surprised how many Swedes dig the meatballs. I seem to recall reading a Chowhound post which claimed IKEA's tasted like dog food. Well, woof woof. ;-)

Agree on the rye crispbread and the cardamom rusks mentioned below. Scan the ingredients on the rusks though, some bags don't contain cardamom. Plain are all right, but that little touch of spice is pretty special.

Some people like that salty-sweet fish stuff, that's for sure. I'm a very open-minded eater, but I think that's something you have to be brought up on.

I second the meatballs and don't forget to get the packet of sauce that goes with it - quite good. I also recommend the hotdogs - delicious - you will need to buy the mustard to go with. As for dessert why not try the dajm cake in the freezer section - swedes go crazy for this.
Have fun.

I tried to find out what this cake is like, but it's the first time I've come up pretty much empty on Google and Wickipedia. What's a dajm?

It's "Daim cake"- you'll be able to Google it.

Daim is a Swedish candy, it is similar to the American Heath bar. Daim cake is bits of the candy layered with almond biscuit cake (in this case, biscuit is pronounced "bis-KWEE", it's a type of cake generally no more than about 1/4 inch thick) and covered with chocolate and Daim bits. There are several different kinds; I think the milk chocolate one is best. They almost always have pieces of it for sale in the cafe, so if you're wondering about it you can try a piece before taking home the whole thing.

Link: http://thecosmicjester.blogspot.com

Thank you! I finally called a Swedish friend, and she'd never heard of it either, and said, "maybe it was a typo". And, indeed, it was.

Butterfly mentions smoked salmon. Some time back, there was an extensive discussion on this forum about IKEA's smoked salmon, and what a great deal it was. Got sufficiently stoked about that to subject myself to the weekend monkey-zoo that is the Burbank store, only to find I was suffering the ill-behaved mob scene in vain: NO smoked salmon, nor indeed any sign that there ever had been any. Nor any on subsequent trips. Is it seasonal? Like, for three days in the middle of February or something?

They have it now. Was there two weeks ago in the lil cafe by checkout. Also have it in the cafeteria upstairs.

The Anna's cookies are very very good, and a screaming deal to boot.

And you'd better be doing Swedish meatballs if you're having an IKEA furniture party.

Link: http://thecosmicjester.blogspot.com

I like the little cardamom flavored toasts that they sell in bags (krisp-something, I think they are called). They would go nicely with smoked salmon, cheese, etc.