ITP Cheaps: IKEA, Terravita & Zoo madness

Oh yes, another edition of my Cheap Thrills in the Herald of Boston, and this post-Halloween column is rather schizo -- a tasty deal at IKEA, a drum n bass party and discounts at the zoo. lolwut.


NOT SPICEY, NOT PRICEY
$1 Swedish Meatball Plate at IKEA
Saturday through Tuesday, IKEA, 1 IKEA Way, Stoughton
As if we needed another reason to go to the wondrous adult-shopping fairyland known as IKEA and blow money we don’t have. But after last weekend’s endless Halloween party debauchery, it’s high time for a bit of retail therapy. And what better way to spend the weekend than traveling IKEA’s maze-like shopping trail and ogle and ahh things with names like Ektorp (a nice couch), Ljusas Uvas (a sweet table lamp) and Skanka (an indispensable six-piece cookware set)? But the real treat this weekend is in the restaurant, where IKEA is offering its 10-meatball dinner plate, complete with mashed potatoes and cream sauce (mmmmm, cream sauce) for just $1. It’s usually $4.29, and this leaves enough money left over to buy several gallons of lingonberry juice, which goes oh-so-well when mixed with vodka. 10 cent meatballs? Praise be to Sweden. Say “Ja!” with us!
Info: ikea-usa.com, 781-344-4532

BASS INVADERS
Terravita (Hot Pink Delorean) at Elements dance party
Tonight at 10; the Phoenix Landing, 512 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 19-plus, $5
OK, it appears not everybody is partied-out from Halloween, and sometimes you need to sidestep the usual glossy-walled electro bashes for something grittier. Enter tonight’s drum ’n’ bass party at Elements at the Phoenix Landing, where Hot Pink Delorean’s alter-ego Terravita drops the heavy beat heard throughout Cambridge. As Boston’s best dance music production team Hot Pink Delorean, the trio just wrapped up a summer destroying the downtown electro scene with DJ gigs alongside the likes of Steve Aoki, MSTRKRFT and Steve from Soulwax. Now Terravita flips the crossfader switch and takes on Central Square’s best drum ’n’ bass dance floor. With Terravita’s new jam “Loud N Proud” getting attention on Grooverider’s show on the UK’s BBC Radio 1, the boys’ blossoming side gig is catching up to the always-speeding Delorean on the party scene highway.
Info: thephoenixlanding.org, 617-576-6260, myspace.com/terravita


MUST BE KIDDING
Kids price for everybody, Saturdays at the Stone and Franklin Park zoos
The first Saturday of every month, enter between 10 a.m. and noon; the Stone Zoo, 149 Pond St., Stoneham ($7) and the Franklin Park Zoo, 1 Franklin Park Road, Dorchester ($8); all ages.
Even though the always awesome Zoolights program at Stone Zoo doesn’t get properly lit until Thanksgiving (kind of like your Uncle Tony), there’s still a good reason to hit up the Franklin Park Zoo or its Stoneham counterpart this Saturday. Zoo New England has introduced Kids Price Saturdays, offering everyone in the fam-clan the chance to enter on the cheap and avoid the embarrassment of passing off your emaciated 20-something college girlfriend as a spry 10-year-old just to save a few bucks. Hit up the Tropical Forest, Giraffe Savannah and Kalahari Kingdom at the Franklin, and check out the Yukon Creek, Windows to the Wild and Treasures of the Sierra Madre exhibits at the Stone. Traversing the zoos also provides exercise. Just be sure to give our regards to the meerkats kicking it in Stoneham.
Info: zoonewengland.org; Franklin Park Zoo at 617-541-5466 and Stone Zoo at 781-438-5100