Cheap Eats in Beltsville

[lavidamd]

We survived the Ikea Easter smorgasbord experience. I had grand plans to photograph everything we ate. We ended up seeing friends when we got in line, so we sat with them while we ate and I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures. Luckily, a Flickr member photographed food from an Ikea Christmas smorgasbord and the food was the same (except they only had crispbread in College Park.... no rolls). I had crispbread, cheese, cucumber salad (quick refrigerator pickles), beet salad, steamed carrots, scalloped potatoes, deviled eggs, herring in mustard sauce, poached salmon, smoked salmon, a sausage that was basically a tiny hot dog (kind of like "little smokies"), and meatballs with lingonberry sauce. There was a big dessert table that looked amazing, but I'm not a dessert person. Most of the world loves dessert and the staff had a hard time keeping the table full, despite the enormity of it. I had lingonberry  juice to drink. I was surprised that they had beer and wine for sale for $3. The cafeteria doesn't usually sell beer and wine, but I suppose they were able to get a one day license, because it was a ticketed event. The food was good, but the place really was packed. It went from 7 - 10 p.m. If I had to do it again, I think I would wait and go at 8:30, instead of getting there right at 7 p.m., because they did replenish the food and the line was much shorter by then. We wanted to get home to watch the Washington Capitals playoff game.

I thought I ate enough to sustain me for several days. But, I found myself in the Maryland Farms shopping center Saturday afternoon to buy some beer. I remembered that it was the annual BOGO footlong day at Subway and there was hardly anyone in line. I got a turkey and provelone sub and an Italian cold-cut sub, which we gave to a friend. The guy in front of me got FOUR bacon, egg, and pepper jack cheese subs and he asked for quadruple bacon on all of them. Also, he told them to put extra chipotle sauce on them and I mean they put A LOT. I was tempted to ask him if he was getting them that way just for the novelty of going totally nuts about it, but I didn't want to be rude if he thought there was nothing unusual about it.

I'm going to settle in to watch the third Washington Capitals playoff game. I hope everyone is having a great weekend.