Couple of months back, IKEA in Singapore had suspended sales of their famed chicken wings after receiving numerous complaints about their deteriorating quality. I shared the same thoughts with many too. That the IKEA chicken wings were getting miserably smaller in size, less crispy on the outside and drier on the inside. That said, the wings were still flying off the shelves and selling like hotcakes prior to the suspension. Almost everyone in the dining hall would be gnawing at a chicken wing whenever we visited. Including us, lol, if the queue wasn’t too crazily long to put us off.
J always says IKEA food is like canteen food and for the same price paid, we can get better options elsewhere. I totally agree, really. But for some unknown reasons, we always find ourselves eating at the restaurant whenever we come to IKEA. The food is not spectacular but still kinda comforting I guess. Or perhaps it’s just part of the IKEA experience. ?
Last month, IKEA relaunched their chicken wings with a brand new recipe. We happened to be at IKEA to pick up a picture frame so decided to order some meatballs and a plate of chicken wings to share.
$3 for 2. $6 for 4. $8 for 6.
First impression of the IKEA chicken wings was good. Looked bigger than before. And evenly browned on the outside.
We couldn’t wait to dig in as we had high expectations of these ‘improved’ IKEA chicken wings. However, after one bite of the wing, we already felt pretty disappointed. ?
The chicken wings were absolutely bland. Maybe the chef forgot to add salt. But we just couldn’t make out any distinctive flavour of the marinade. Similar to old-school Chinese-style fried chicken wings but the taste was just weak.
Our wings came from a freshly replenished batch and were hot to touch but they were just not crispy.
The only good point about these wings was that the meat inside was moist and juicy. But that wouldn’t be a substantial reason for us to queue up again for them because we waited very, very long to get our hands on these wings during peak meal time. ?
A friend told me the chicken wings she had at IKEA recently were still a little raw, red and bloody inside. Eww, not nice. Yes, maybe there were just too many people and the kitchen couldn’t keep up with the demand but seriously, no excuses for that.
For now, I shall stick to my all-time favourite fried chicken wings from Two Wings or Korean fried chicken from Chir Chir.
On the other hand, I thought I should mention that the IKEA meatballs were pretty darn delicious, lol. Not because it was the better of the two dishes. I remembered how floury the meatballs were previously but this time round, I thought they were more firm and meaty.
Hmm, did the recipe for meatballs change as well?