The caviar is o.k., I tried it a couple of times over the last years and it wasn't bad. But I think the price is actually not that cheap for roe. The meatballs - entirely different story. How anyone could eat these fatty pork-meatballs is beyond me. The only thing even worse is the frozen "sauce" they sell with it.

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May I emphasize the point you made -- that it's lumpfish roe -- not caviar -- which is why it's cheap.

The class of fish called "lumpfish" produce these eggs (roe), and the roe is often sold as a caviar *alternative*, for several reasons. Price being one, and, as a more eco-friendly or sustainable alternative to the over-fished sturgeon roe (true caviar).

I like to think of this as the tofu stuff called "chikken" sold in health food stores. It's close and it's a similar mouthfeel and supposed to be a stand-in, but it isn't chicken.

Many unethical caviar packers try to pass off lumpfish roe as actual caviar -- sturgeon roe -- and it's another, lesser reported example of the recently reported "seafood wars" in shops and restaurants, where patrons are fooled into thinking they have high-end seafood, and it turns out it's nothing more than tilapia.

IKEA doesn't do that of course, but the difference between lumpfish roe and caviar still warrants this discussion. Lumpfish still has that salty poppy mouthfeel you want from caviar, but it's dyed red or black to look like caviar, and if it's overly fishy or oily, you've got a bad batch.

I purchased a jar from IKEA to garnish appetizers. It's neither great nor terrible, in my opinion, but at least it wasn't oily or fishy.

I've also tried the meatballs. They are neither great nor terrible, either. I've never seen "frozen" sauce. I've seen and used the packets of gravy they provided alongside, which requires water to reconstitute, but I've never seen frozen sauce. In either case, it's not a repeat purchase for me, either.

In fact, none of the pantry food items from that department are really GOOD (to me), except I do indulge in two things: The boxed vanilla sauce to have on hand for emergency desserts, and, the boxed vanilla powdered sugar, to sprinkle over desserts. That's pretty decent. My mother thinks the ground coffee is good. I don't drink much coffee, so I can't comment on that.

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I've tried their smoked/creamed roe spread (can't remember what it's called), and it was pretty good. I preferred the salmon pate, though. I'm a big fan of international foods, so I always spend a long time looking around Ikea's food market. They had blueberry tea recently that was fairly good for the price, and I love their lingdonberry drink extract.

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