{"id":4752,"date":"2015-04-28T15:04:16","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T19:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/?p=4752"},"modified":"2015-05-01T14:05:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T18:05:39","slug":"ikea-veggie-balls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/ikea-veggie-balls\/","title":{"rendered":"IKEA Veggie Balls – Gronsaksbullar!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, they’re here, and I liked them.<\/p>\n

From the moment we walked into the IKEA on The Queensway in Toronto, it shaped up to be a positive experience. There was a big sign by the escalator in the entrance announcing the new veggie balls. We went over on the first day (April 27) to give them a try, it was weird to plan a trip to IKEA solely to eat at the Restaurant, a spot that hasn’t particularly been that exciting for me for the last few decades. But there we were.<\/p>\n

We arrived just in time to be sandwiched between crowds on either side. I don’t know how many of us were excitedly waiting for veggie balls – it may have just been a normal day at IKEA. But for me, I was looking forward to trying them, but I was also trying to keep my expectations low. I had some friends in the USA (where the veggie balls launched earlier this month) saying they weren’t that exciting or they needed more sauce, so that tempered my expectations a little bit.\"IKEA<\/p>\n

Ingredients:<\/strong> \u00a0Vegetable Balls – Chickpeas, green peas, carrots, red bell peppers, corn, kale, pea protein, onions, rapeseed oil, seasoning (salt, dried cane syrup, yeast extract, dried onion, spices [rubbed sage, lack pepper, bay leaves], dried carrot, dried parsley, natural extracts of black pepper, turmeric, pea starch.<\/em><\/p>\n

Service was super nice too. They made a point of saying “That makes them totally vegan” when I asked for it without parmesan (p.s. ask for it without parmesan.) and when we took our trays over to the cashier they made a comment about how they were new and they liked them. I don’t know if this part of the sales process, or just real life good stuff, but either way, it left a positive impression. So often you get the vegan option somewhere that’s not really vegan-friendly generally, and the staff comments can be so off putting. Not here. Just nice… and encouraging even.<\/p>\n

\"VeganI don’t know what the naysayers were talking about. I liked the whole plate. It came with rice and black beans, some lightly steamed broccoli, veggie balls, and some marinara sauce. \u00a0We sat in the back corner and as I slowly munched along, I was genuinely (and pleasantly) surprised at how much I liked them.<\/p>\n

A few friends and I had been joking that we’d have to bring our own gravy, but it worked out that it was fine without any extra sauces. Now, I’m not saying that I won’t pick up a bag of frozen Veggie Balls in August 2015<\/strong>, when they’re available in the freezer section (According to IKEA<\/a>) and slather them in homemade gravy and lingonberry sauce, but it works all by itself.<\/p>\n

\"2015<\/a><\/p>\n

The price point wasn’t bad either. We bought two veggie ball plates, and 2 of their bottled drinks (rosehip for me, pear cider for JC) for under $20.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you tried it yet? What did you think?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, they’re here, and I liked them. From the moment we walked into the IKEA on The Queensway in Toronto, it shaped up to be a positive experience. There was a big sign by the escalator in the entrance announcing the new veggie balls. We went over on the first...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[356],"tags":[1322,1323],"class_list":["post-4752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-toronto-2","tag-ikea","tag-veggie-balls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}