US vs UK Ikea | Food Wars | Insider Food

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Harry: From exclusive items to portion sizes, we wanted to find out all the differences between Ikea food in the US and the UK. This is "Food Wars." Quick note: It turns out Ikea does not offer a takeout option, but fortunately they do sell lots of Tupperware containers. So in case you're wondering why the food looks a little bit sad, it's because we had to improvise. On with the video. Let's start portion sizes with Ikea's claim to fame when it comes to food, the Swedish meatballs. In the US, Ikea's restaurant offer only one portion size for meatballs, eight pieces, but after that you can get them in increments of four. For instance, 12 meatballs. In the UK, Ikea's iconic meatballs come in two portion sizes, eight or 12. You can also add four extra meatballs to any order for an extra £1.75, and there's seemingly no limit to how many times you can do this. In the UK, the meatballs come with either mashed potatoes or chips on the side, as well as some garden peas, lingonberry jam, and of course their famous gravy. And of course the meatball options all come with a side of mashed potatoes and peas. Get a load of that. Also a little bit of cranberry sauce. We're going to weigh eight meatballs in both countries to see whose meatballs are bigger. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. Let's also try and weigh our mash. Now, I do feel like the stats might be skewed slightly because there's some peas embedded in this. I will try and free it where I can. We got way more mash than the UK, like almost double! They're feeding us at our Ikeas. Vegans and vegetarians, rejoice. Ikea also offers vegetarian-vegan versions of its meatballs right here. We're doing a blind taste test, plant versus meat. That's definitely plant-based. What's the next one? Peter: No. Oh, was that wrong? Wait, OK, give me another one. OK, this is the other one? Yeah, that's meat. Not even close. Not even close. Thank you, Peter. Neither were bad. And if I was a vegetarian or vegan, I would be perfectly happy with those plant balls. Tasted perfectly fine, but the difference is noticeable. We share a couple of dessert options with the US, notably the Daim cake. Over here, we call that the caramel almond cake. Let's weigh a slice. Another dessert option we share with the UK is the soft-serve ice cream, which you get in vanilla or strawberry. OK, first of all, the gentleman who worked there was adamant that's actually frozen yogurt. I don't know if that's true or not. Regardless, they didn't have to-go cups like Harry was able to get, so all they would give us is the small cup where it's kind of poking out like it's ready to eat. It is 97 degrees in Los Angeles today. There was absolutely no way that was making it from Ikea to the car, let alone the studio. So here's footage of me enjoying it in the lobby of Ikea. So, I'm sorry I didn't bring the scale. I don't know how much it weighs. We have soft-serve ice cream in the UK too, either as vanilla or vanilla with chocolate sauce. Impressively, they've given us exactly 100 grams of soft-serve ice cream. Ikea is also known for its hot dogs. In the UK you can get either a classic hot dog or a veggie hot dog from the bistro stand. We're going to measure and weigh the classic hot dog to compare with the US. The hot dog in the UK is 7 inches in length, and with the toppings of pickles and onions, it weighs 114 grams. Hot dog. Our hot dog is 5 ¼ inches long, and our hot dog weighs 75 grams. Here are all the menu items from a UK Ikea that you won't find in the US. Here's all the food you'll find in a US Ikea you won't find in the UK. Starting out down here, hot entrées. This single piece of chicken is the Havana chicken. Now, it doesn't come alone. It comes with plantains, rice, and beans, which we will see in a little bit. But just isolated, the chicken, has been sitting for a minute, sorry. Havana chicken. I wonder what makes it so Havana. Yeah, I'm definitely getting some spices in here. Very flavorful, not just, like, a standard piece of chicken. It's actually really good. We'll start down this end with some main courses. We have two different nonmeat-meatball options in the UK. Firstly, we have the veggie balls. These are meatballs which are formed of ground-up vegetables, and they're also served with a vegetable couscous as well. But for vegetarians who prefer something a bit more reminiscent of meat, they also have plant balls. Now, I'm kind of intrigued by these because they look really good. These are a fake-meat version of Ikea's classic meatballs. Now, compared to a classic meatball, they're actually almost more visually appealing, I would say. They're a nice, dark, golden brown color. They look like they've been cooked in a similar way, maybe even kind of fried or cooked for longer than you would expect from these. Let's do a very quick taste test. Classic meatball. We all know and love it. These things are delicious. And then one of the plant balls. I will say the plant-based one doesn't have that distinct Ikea meatball taste to it. That said, still pretty tasty. I think texture-wise, it's almost identical to the classic meatball. You can also get a salmon filet with pea pesto, vegetable medallions, and a corn medley, which you can see right here. I mean, salmon's OK, I guess. OK. This isn't, it's been sitting for a while. If you like salmon, sure. I don't know, you go to Ikea, you get salmon? Pea pesto's interesting though. Still in the mood for fish before you go furniture shopping? You can also get the garlic lemon cod with, of course, mashed potatoes and peas. Actually, that's a pretty good piece of fish. Yeah, I actually really like that. OK, I stand corrected. I was dissing the fish. It's actually pretty good. We have a British classic dish, and that's fish and chips. Now, the fish they serve at Ikea in the UK is pollack. It comes with chips, peas, and some tartar sauce. Now, unlike fish and chips that you might find from a classic chippy in the UK, they've actually breaded their fish rather than battered and then fried it. I generally prefer the battered fish texture. I like the kind of crispy crunch on the outside that you get from batter. I'm going to have a little try of this. It's very weird tasting things on "Food Wars" using a knife and fork. I don't like it. I respect that they have attempted to localize their menu to the UK market. But maybe put a bit more thought into your R&D there. If you want to see what proper fish and chips looks like, go and check out our "Food Tours" best fish and chips in London video. Next up we have another fish option. It's a salmon filet. Charlie: Fillet. Leon: Come on. Next up we have another fish option. It's a salmon fillet. In the UK, we generally lean more towards "fillet" as the wording, and also we spell it slightly differently. Often we spell it with two L's, whereas I believe in the US it tends to be spelled with one. I think you can get a salmon fillet in the US. However, like we say, we pronounce ours slightly differently, and also in the UK ours comes with the veggie couscous. Chicken tenders. I mean, come on. Comes with fries and broccoli. Hm, wait, these tenders are actually very good. Like, the breading, they're really breaded. Decent fries. Hearty. Ikea also has a few things on the menu that were not available at the one we went to. A chicken thigh with garlic chipotle sauce, broccoli, and rice. Sounds actually pretty good. Lingonberry barbecue ribs with mac 'n' cheese. Ah! I was so mad they didn't have those. And a plant-based burger with fries, also not available at time of filming this. Now, lingonberries are majorly popular in Swedish cuisine, and you're going to see them pop up a few more times in the Ikea menu. Next up is penne pasta with tomato sauce. Penne, of course, refers to the shape of pasta that they use here in Ikea. [Charlie laughing] Charlie's loved that. I think penne is maybe my least favorite pasta shape. I do not respect penne. Moving swiftly on from the penne, we have a chicken katsu curry. I think this is a relatively new addition to the UK Ikea menu. So, katsu refers to the chicken katsu fillet, which is a breaded and fried piece of chicken, and then it's served with rice and katsu sauce. I've not tried this before. That looks like one just massive piece of chicken, you know? Science. Other than a couple of slightly disconcerting dark patches inside the chicken breast, it's actually not bad. I think because of the size of the breast it's dried out quite a lot, but the katsu sauce is really nice. I like it with the rice. I think particularly if we'd eaten this hot, this actually would be pretty good. Next up on the UK menu you can find a potato and cauliflower rogan josh curry. A rogan josh is a curry that you'll find on the menu of a lot of UK curry houses. It's not super spicy, generally quite mild. I'd say traditionally you would see this made with lamb, but they've made a vegetarian version here, obviously with potato and cauliflower as the main bulk of it. The rogan josh from Ikea is served with rice, and then you can also get some side options which are designed to go with it, including some pakoras, samosas, and a garlic naan. Obviously the UK has a large British Indian population, so I do think this is another attempt to kind of localize the menu. That's pretty good. That's pretty flavorful. There are some other main-course options from UK Ikeas which unfortunately we couldn't find today. These include such things as butternut squash and sweet potato soup; Mangalore chicken curry; butternut squash, blue cheese, and caramelized onion pie; chili sin carne; garlic butter chicken pie; and leek and potato soup. I would like to move on to the sides. Right here we have the vegetable medallions. I like veggies presented like this, just like in a little puck. Just bite into it. Looks like it has some broccoli, mostly potato friendly, little onion. Yeah, not bad. Decent side. It's like broccoli potatoes, like broccoli mashed potatoes. That Havana chicken that I mentioned earlier, this is the beans and rice it comes with. I don't know if they mix them up or it just got mixed up in transit, but, you know, beans and rice. Let's go. This is just white rice and black beans. I don't taste any additional flavor to this at all. They do sometimes offer plantains. Again, the Ikea we went to today did not have plantains, but they did have a garlic bread. I think that's an exclusive. On to the Ikea cold dishes. They have a veggie dog. Well, the veggie dog wrap is under the cold dishes according to the script, and this veggie dog is cold. Maybe it's been sitting a while. Either way, it's not very good. Also, they have a Greek salad, also the Caesar salad, which, once again, I mean, this is pretty low effort. A Stockholm salad, not to be confused with Stockholm syndrome, which I'm starting to feel right now eating this food. Salmon, lettuce, lemon. Sure. That's not bad, actually. I like this sauce that's turning color under these lights and this salmon. We're not quite sure what is in this salad, what the sauce is right now, but due the miracle of editing, we can put that on the screen right, and that's what it is. Tastes pretty good. Also, you can get a BLT chicken wrap. Not bad if you like wraps and BLT and chicken. Also at a US Ikea, which was not available at time of filming this at our Burbank Ikea, is a Greek veggie ball wrap and marinated salmon. The UK's cold-plate menu is pretty bland in comparison. The only one they had today was this marinated salmon plate, but we can also get an egg and shrimp sandwich with mayo, marinated salmon wrap, small salad bowl, and a tomato and mozzarella salad. I guess I'll give the salmon a quick try. I do like smoked salmon. Here, of course, they call it gravlax because it's the traditional Swedish way, and it comes with a dill sauce and some lemon. Fairly mild flavor. I like the kind of herb crusting that you get. The dill sauce is pretty dilly. And now on to desserts. There are three exclusive Ikea US desserts. I was only able to get one of them. So, the first would be the strawberry shortcake, not available at time of shooting this. The second is this, the caramel almond cake. And the third is the infamous chocolate layered cake, also known as the conspiracy cake. I asked everyone there, "Please tell me you have chocolate cake." And they all said no. No chocolate cake at the Burbank Ikea, today, at least. Tragically, we don't have the conspiracy cake here in the UK, but we do have some other exclusive dessert options. For example, this delightful-looking strawberry tart. There's some real pieces of strawberry in there. I like the pastry, I like the cream, I like the fresh strawberries. Whatever the kind of strawberry syrup jelly stuff that they've put around the outside is, it's OK, but it has a slightly, almost medicinal quality to it that I don't really love. It almost reminds me of Calpol. I don't know if you have that in the US, but it's a medicine that's marketed towards children in the UK. Next up, we have Ikea's famous Daim cake. Now, you do have this on the menu in the US, however, I believe you guys call it something slightly different. I think caramel almond cake. Is Daim not a particularly big brand name in the US? Because over here in the UK I'd say most people are familiar with Daim as a chocolate brand. Harry was just talking a minute ago about the Daim cake, the diam cake, D-I-A-M cake? I've never heard of it. I've never heard of that brand. I have no idea what it is, I'm sorry, but we do have this, which I think is supposed to be similar. Oh, yeah. This is fantastic. I'm getting one of these every time I go. I'm going to get one of these, and I'm going to get that chocolate cake. I'm going to be on the lookout for it now. It's maybe not quite as popular in the UK as it used to be. It reminds me of my grandad a lot because he used to really love a Daim bar. I wouldn't see many people my age going for it, but still very tasty if you're in the mood for it. And this cake is sensational. You get these layers of chocolate, this kind of biscuity crumb, and these kind of, like, almost pancakes in the middle. I think these dividing lines might almost be kind of cold, chilled pancakes. This might be my favorite thing on the menu. This is why I'm making excuses to go to Ikea. Mm. They did have these at the register, and this also says Daim on it. Have we seen that? Yeah. OK, this tastes like this. Never heard of this, but it's very good, and this is fantastic. Maybe they just rebranded it because no one in the US knows what ... Daim cake? Diam cake is? Our next dessert option is a cheesecake with blueberries and raspberries. It's a very soft cheesecake, really easy to cut. There's a nice baked crumb on top. There's a layer of the berry stuff, so there's some blueberries in there, some raspberries. Then finally we have these Under the Sea rocky road biscuits. Obviously, rocky road in the UK is a dessert, which is usually a no-bake dessert made of things like melted chocolate, golden syrup, marshmallows, even things like cornflakes, pieces of biscuit, that sort of thing, all just kind of mixed together, left to set, and then you have a nice easy dessert. It turns out what makes this Under the Sea is that they have a kind of animal stamp in icing on top of it. Here we have this nice octopus, and here we have a couple of dolphins. I think when I eat a rocky road I kind of want some more distinct elements. I like being able to bite into it and crunch through a bit of biscuit or chew through a raisin or something. Whereas with this one, it's kind of all blended together, so you don't really get the texture contrasts. The flavor's very much there. It's still all those elements that I'm used to in terms of the flavor. You may also be able to find some other dessert options on a UK menu which we couldn't find today. These include things like a caramelized biscuit cheesecake, a chocolate clementine bomb, an elderflower and lemon cake, a gooey chocolatey cake, a lemon cheesecake, rhubarb and custard cake, and a strawberry jelly. Aside from its restaurant, Ikea also has the Swedish bistro for quick bites. The bistro serves quick bites like hot dogs and pizza slices that you can generally grab on your way out of the store. A few exclusives we had, of course, was pizza slice. There it is. I went with cheese. Is this like Costco where, like, surprise, Ikea has amazing pizza? This is a really good slice of pizza. I can't tell, but I think this was oven-cooked, fire-oven-cooked, not just like the pizza oven. This has, like, a, yeah, like a brick oven. It's not as good as Costco, but it's pretty good. Wow, weird. Ikea's got good pizza. Good on you, Ikea. You can also get this giant bistro pretzel. Look at this little, like, a little braid here. Look at me, I'm a Jedi. But you are not a Jedi yet. And it comes with mustard. They didn't have the mustard either, man. I don't know, is it because I went at 10:30 in the morning and the stuff hadn't shown up yet? They didn't have anything. A pretzel with no mustard. No, no. You need to dip in something. Also at the US Ikea bistro, you can get a marinated salmon baguette. They didn't have it. We have a few exclusive bistro options of our own in the UK. Firstly, if you like the onions on the hot dog, you can just get a side of fried onions. Next up we have these, which are chick'less strips. So, these are a plant-based version of a chicken tender. I'd say they look pretty good. They kind of passed the visual test. Yeah, when I tore this apart I was worried that the texture wasn't going to be right, and unfortunately it's not. It's very spongy, it's very mushy. It just needs a little bit more texture. Just something to make it resemble a chicken tender a little bit more. Obviously when you get an actual piece of chicken tender or chicken breast, you can kind of tear it, and you see those strips and the fibers. They just really haven't got that here. Flavor's not too bad, though. We can also get chips from the bistro in the UK. It doesn't seem like you guys can do this in the US. We have our veggie dog option, which comes with the same toppings as the regular hot dog. So, here we've got fried onions. You can also get some with pickles. The veggie dog in the UK isn't a plant-based-meat thing, it is just vegetables. So it looks like there's some kale in there, some carrot, maybe, like, some mustard seeds. I think that, with the fried onions, with the pickles and some sauce, actually a pretty good veggie option. Then we have some drink options, notably milkshakes. In the UK you can get milkshakes in four flavors, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and banana. We got a banana one today. Have a little sip. That's not bad. Pretty gentle banana flavor. It's mostly just ice cream but with a little bit of flavoring in that, which, who could say no? Ikea in the UK does serve breakfast, although unfortunately when we arrived today they weren't serving it. The options that you'll find there are pretty much everything that you would normally find on a full English breakfast, so it includes things like bacon, sausages, hash browns, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, black pudding. Sometimes you'll find things like tattie scones as well, and you can also get white or wholemeal toast. If breakfast platters aren't your thing, then you can also just go for some fruit or some porridge. Breakfast! The breakfast platter in the US also comes in both regular and small sizes and is made up of eggs, potatoes, bacon, Swedish pancakes, and now it's supposed to be topped with the lingonberry jam, and they didn't give it to us! The US breakfast menu also offers a skagen croissant sandwich, which is a croissant filled with traditional Swedish shrimp salad. They didn't have it. I think Ikea has its own line of drinks available in its restaurants. The US Ikeas, you'll find cola, sugar-free cola, sparkling raspberry juice, lingonberry juice, and sparkling lemonade. I went ahead and got the lingonberry juice. Straight up, no idea what a lingonberry is, but it's fantastic. There's no difference in the size cups. You just have glasses that are the same size or these to-go cups or whatever. We have some drink options at the restaurant in the UK that you guys might not have in the US. There are a couple of options for kids, which are these Pip Organic juices. We have a couple of Robinsons options in the UK. Robinsons is probably the most popular brand of squash in the UK, and this is basically just a diluted version of their squash. Squash, for those who don't know, is a concentrated, fruity drink that you kind of water down to have a nice refreshing beverage. You can get a peach and mango version or a raspberry and apple version. And if you feel like celebrating any of your purchases that you've just made from the Ikea, you can also get alcohol. We have three alcoholic options on the menu at a UK Ikea, a rosé wine, a red wine, or a dark lager. Finally, Ikea has a Swedish market where you can buy prepackaged food items to take home. The items on offer include some of their classic foods, like the meatballs, which you can buy frozen, or some gravy sachets, which you can make at home. In the UK, you can also find the plant-based balls on offer in there. You can get a whole frozen Daim cake, which I'll be taking home and eating all by myself. And speaking of Daim, you can also get the chocolate which the cake is based on. Here it's in bite-sized form rather than as actual chocolate bars, but as you can see, it's chocolate with a kind of hard caramel center. Charlie has dibs on these. Another thing at the US Ikea, maybe not exclusives per se, but of course they have a whole thing of frozen stuff. I just grabbed stuff that was interesting. Come on, the Cinnabons, huh? The cinnamon buns. Meatballs. And, you know we were talking about the Daim cake, but they do have, it's frozen to take home, and of course it is the Daim cake. Let's compare the nutritional information of some iconic Ikea dishes in the US and the UK. In the UK, eight Ikea meatballs contains the following: 342 calories, 25.1 grams of fat, 8.2 grams of carbs, and 856 milligrams of sodium. In the US, the same plate of Swedish meatballs contain 304 calories, 22.4 grams of fat, 6.4 grams of carbs, 592 milligrams of sodium. The UK takes this round in every category. What about the Ikea hot dog? In the US it contains 260 calories, 15 grams of fat, 24 grams of carbs, and 780 milligrams of sodium. And in the UK, the hot dog contains 293 calories, 15.2 grams of fat, 29.5 grams of carbs, and 708 milligrams of sodium. Looks like the UK version is higher in calories and fat once again. USA, baby. What's actually in the iconic Ikea meatballs? According to the Ikea website, if you want to make their meatballs at home, use the following ingredients: beef mince, pork mince, onion, garlic, bread crumbs, milk, egg, and salt and pepper to taste. But is that actually the ingredients list for proper Ikea meatballs? Well, on the back of the frozen packet, you'll find an ingredients list. According to this packet, they contain beef, pork, water, bread crumbs, egg, dried onion, salt, egg powder, black pepper extract, and allspice. Overall, it seems like it's pretty close to the list that they gave you on the website, with a few more things like powdered ingredients versus fresh ingredients, and a couple of spice differences too. I wasn't able to find it online or in the cafeteria, the ingredients list, but I got here the frozen precooked meatballs, and those ingredients ... hm, actually not bad. Assuming these are the ones that they have in the cafeteria in the US, the ingredients for this is beef, pork, water, bread crumbs made of unbleached wheat flour, salt, and yeast, whole eggs, salt, dehydrated onion, egg white, that's not plural. Egg white, singular. Spices. That's not bad, I think, for a prepackaged product, right? It's like, well, that's, you know, what's in them, right? While we're on the subject of Ikea ingredients, one thing that UK viewers might remember was our infamous horsemeat scandal. Back in 2013, a number of foods in the UK claiming to be beef or pork were actually found to contain traces of horsemeat. While this wasn't necessarily a health issue, it did raise some major questions concerning the traceability of foods throughout supply chains, and unfortunately Ikea was also caught up in this scandal. Czech authorities found traces of horsemeat in some Ikea meatballs that had been produced in Sweden and shipped all around Europe. Thankfully, the horsemeat meatballs were found before they reached consumers. In total, 760 kilograms of meatballs were destroyed. Given the fact that there's no health concerns related to the consumption of horsemeat, I think they should have just leaned into it. Just passed them off as, like, limited-edition horse meatballs, and just go with it, lads, it's fine. Ikea's food is almost suspiciously cheap, and it's actually one of the ways it tricks you into spending more time and money in its stores. Ikea is basically willing to take its losses with its cheap food prices because it's counting on you to spend a bunch of money on furniture and other household items. A former Ikea executive even referred to the meatballs as the "best sofa seller." In the UK, a plate of eight meatballs, peas, mash or chips, gravy, and lingonberry jam will set you back just £4.95. At the time of recording, that's around $6.49. I do have to say, that's really cheap. I don't think the quality's that bad. It's really tasty food and, yeah, it's a real bargain. I will make an effort to go via the restaurant if I'm just going through Ikea. Even if I'm just popping in for, like, one or two bits, I'm going to sit down, eat a plate of meatballs. It's good value, it's tasty, I love it. An eight-meatball meal in the US is $9.99, which in the UK is £7.80. That's a 54% increase in the States. Overall I would say Ikea is pretty popular in the UK. It's most people's go-to for basic furniture and household needs, I would say, especially when people are buying a house or moving house or something like that. Personally, I love Ikea. I love going there. I do enjoy a trip. It's fun. I like the food. I like walking around and pretending, like, "Ooh, that could be my apartment or my bedroom or my kitchen." I wouldn't say Ikea is somewhere I go often, particularly because I live in quite central London, and there aren't many in Central London. I think they're trying to open one on Oxford Street right now. At the time of recording this, it wasn't open, but they're kind of trying to get there. But so, like I say, it's more of a place where you'll go specifically when you need to do an Ikea shop. Ikea is so popular here. I think it's popular in the whole country. The one in Burbank, we went there at 10:30 in the morning. It opens at 10, and at 10:30, parking lot was pretty full. The cafeteria line was full. So I'd say Ikea's pretty popular. I personally wouldn't go to Ikea just for the food. Again, it might be because I don't live close enough to one to make that worthwhile. I do love the food. The meatballs are great. Like I say, the desserts are fantastic. But I don't like it to the extent that I would make the effort to travel to one just to eat there. I'm not going to say I go to Ikea for the food, but the food definitely is a good motivator to go to Ikea. I will say overall I do enjoy the experience of going to an Ikea. I am aware that it's kind of designed to make us spend money. Obviously the restaurant plays a part of this as well, because it's kind of encouraging you to make a day of your trip to Ikea, really spend some time there, sit down, take a break in the middle of the day, eat, re-energize yourself for more shopping. And as you can guess by my friends on the table with me here, I do think that their marketing is a really clever ploy to make us spend more money there as well. I'm joined here by my friend Djungelskog. I'm really sorry, I'm going to butcher these pronunciations. And my friend Blåhaj, who is the adorable little shark who is also, I think, a trans icon. Love that. You'll often see things like this really getting a reputation on the internet, driving more commerce to Ikea stores. I don't know if they're doing that deliberately or if it's just kind of a side effect of making some very, very cute plush toys. But everyone, I think, will generally have at least one thing from Ikea in their home. So whatever they're doing, it's kind of working. I'm not mad about it either. I support Ikea. Keep up the good work, guys.
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Channel: Insider Food
Views: 556,327
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Keywords: INSIDER, FOOD INSIDER
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Length: 28min 5sec (1685 seconds)
Published: Sun Sep 24 2023
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