IKEA Restaurant

Name: IKEA Restaurant, East Palo Alto
Address: 1700 E. Bayshore Rd. East Palo Alto, California 94303
Phone: (650) 323-4532
Web site: ikea-usa.com
Date & Time visited: Friday, June 1, 2007, 7:30 PM
Guests: Jennifer and me
What we had: Swedish meatballs with gravy & fries (Jen), vegetarian wrap & side of rice (me).

I'm really only writing this because looking over my archive of reviews they seem overwhelmingly positive. Tonight's dining experience was less than overwhelmingly positive.

I can't comment on Jennifer's meatballs, but she did eat them all so they couldn't have been too bad. My wrap was bland, the vegetables--red pepper, onion, cabbage--were dry, and the tortilla tasteless. The rice was plain American white rice with no seasoning; salt & pepper helped a little but not much.

Service: It's a counter-service cafeteria style place. The line moved very slowly, but this may have been due to indecisive people ahead of us. In fact, check that, that was definitely the reason. When we got up to the counter, the server was pleasant enough and the food in the steam table was hot and reasonably fresh.

Would we go back: Probably. We've had better meals there in the past and it's conveniently located.