Who you callin’ food snob?

On more than one occasion, our love of food has caused the Spooners to be called food snobs. This post should clear things up.

I love IKEA. It’s big, it has cool, cheap things and it’s from Sweden, which makes it unique coming out the gate. But my favorite thing about IKEA? The food! Seriously, I miss my days of being able to get two hot dogs and a drink for $1.50 (because I don’t eat hotdogs anymore—not because they stopped this wonderful deal). Now I’m stuck with a slice of pizza and a coke for $2, and I can live with that.

My friend Eric also loves IKEA food, although he goes a step up and eats at the sit-down cafeteria in the middle of IKEA (I find it a little difficult to find and why would I pay $7 when I could pay $2?).

So, when I saw that IKEA was having a Christmas buffet for $9.99 at the Round Rock location, we made a plan. I’d go during my lunch break to get tickets, since I worked the closest.

I should mention that Antonio was dubious of this plan, later asking, “are you guys serious about this?”

Um. Yes. IKEA has, like, the best food ever… He’s never eaten their meatballs or lingonberries, though, so I guess we’ll let it slide.

On Thursday, a week and a day before the event, I show up at IKEA, grab a slice of pizza and a Dr. Pepper and head over to the cafeteria, where I assume they’ll be selling the incredibly cheap tickets to the wonderful smorgasbord of food, including (but not limited to) smoked salmon with horseradish sauce, assorted herring, Christmas ham, liverwurst pate, assorted cheeses, meatballs and lingonberries (of course), glogg, gravad lax with mustard sauce, must I go on?

The lady approached me from the back of the cafeteria as I waited semi-patiently at the checkout stand anticipating my four tickets.

“Is this where I get tickets to the holiday buffet?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. We’re sold out,” she said with pity in her eyes.

“Can I ask when you sold out,” I asked, knowing that if it had been the day before I would be scorned!

“Last week, actually,” she replied.

Phew.. at least I wasn’t close—that would have been more tragic. We also did a longshot and searched craigslist in case any poor soul had bought tickets and then realized they no longer had taste buds, but alas, everyone knows the place to be Dec. 9 is IKEA’s 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. buffet line. Next year we’ll be prepared!

If you would still like to learn how to celebrate the holidays like the Swede, mosey on over to their site for a how-to guide: www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/rooms_ideas/winter_2011/like_a_swede.html.