Aldi

I decided to go to Aldi on London Road today to do a bit of shopping (midway through the month, running low on cash, you know how it is)
I’m always impressed by the bargains you can find in aldi. I managed to get a weeks worth of groceries for £30! Okay so they don’t have the biggest range of fruit and vegetables on offer, but it’s more than adequate if you are looking to save money or you are on a budget.
I’ve given this branch of Aldi a lower mark than the one in Portslade, just because it feels small and cramped, and the staff seemed less than interested to help and were just stood around talking to one another.
I’m definitely going to use Aldi a lot more in future, just not the London Road branch.

Aaaahhh!!! I LOVE ALDI! And I’m not ashamed to shout it from the rooftops! Anymore…
But seriously this place is immense — how could you not love it? Everything is great quality and CHEEEAP! Yeah it looks a bit scummy but whatever that place is — the building will ALWAYS look grubby for some reason. It did when it was Sainsbury’s.
Good quality bags of veg for 40p, free range chickens for £4, great selections of cured meats and cheeses and wait til I get to the booze! Oh the booze! Delicious bottles of Malbec and Pinot noir (to name some of many) for £4! It’d be silly of me to shop elsewhere really.
They also sell good little gardening bits too.
My only gripe is there aren’t enough check outs and only a couple of people manning the stations.
But I LOVE ALDI!

I have a love/​hate relationship with Aldi. It’s tough. I walk in and hate that I don’t know where things are. Sainsbury’s fills me with the easy happiness of familiarity… I know where things are, I know how much they will cost, I know exactly the sorts of things that are likely to be on offer… cheddar cheese, pizzas and fromage-​frais. In short, I know pretty much what I will buy and how much it will come to, before I’ve even stepped off the escalator. At Aldi, none of this is true. Yes, I know that everything will be cheaper than it is at Sainsburys, but that’s not enough. How do I know which things are cheap but totally fine and which things are cheap and should be avoided at all costs?!! The answer is I don’t. It’s a gamble every time. I have learned some things: fruit and veg is not really a goer. Cheap beauty supplies though: yes please!
I think the trick is not to try and do your weekly shop at Aldi. I am a fan of the weird and wonderful German pickles and saur krauts and the cheese selection is pretty good too. Other then that, I’ll be sticking to the nearby Sainsbury’s or the smaller shops dotted along the London Rd.

O.K. traditionally a 5 stars out of five would suggest that the place is simply sensational. Aldi is definitely not that. Why then would I give this Aldi five stars? Well you know that feeling of sticking your hand inside a lucky dip and just not knowing what your going to pick out, the excitement, the nerves, the sheer joy of the pick, and not of the end result. That is why I give this Aldi five stars.
The way that the shop is laid out means that is is essentially a lucky dip on a grand scale. There is a big middle stand kind of thing that doesn’t really sell items that have any relevance to each other. I saw Eggnog, and Tuna in very close proximity to each other. O.K. these products shouldn’t be that close, but what I love about Aldi is that doesn’t care about stupid convention. Oh No.
There’s inevitably a lot in this Aldi store that you don’t need or want, but to about every 4 of these, there is one gem which is well worth a visit almost just for that item. In my experience, it is the natural yoghurt for only 50p per large pot, which tickles my fancy somewhat. In fact have taken detours just for this one thing, which I have bought in bulk.
Not 5 stars in the kind of way which 5 stars would normally be awarded, but 5 stars for the whole, disorganised, mad, pot luck experience.

When Aldi took over this spot from Sainsbury’s last year I have to admit I was disappointed. Alongside Lidell’s and Iceland, Aldi is one of the big supermarkets that seems driven by rock bottom prices rather than high quality. A quick walk around the store didn’t change my mind as I saw stacks and stacks of sugary biscuits, cakes, pasta, rice, tomato passata, curry sauces and so on. None of them looked particularly appealing and I wasn’t smitten by any of the dairy products either.
Last week however, I discovered that my folks buy lots of cleaning products and toiletries from Aldi and tried them all first hand. Lo and behold, their washing detergent and conditioner seems as good as Lenor and their coconut shower gels and shampoos smelt and felt pretty great too. At half the price of other supermarkets, I’m tempted to go back to Aldi and see if they have any more in stock.

This shop is confusing. I went in just after it opened to check it out and despite it being a cut-​price supermarket I couldn’t find anything to buy… I mean there was a lot of stock but there was no logic to any of it– it would be hard to make a meal out of any of the stuff there. It was all random jars of sauces, boxes of biscuits, drain cleaner, but no fresh produce, no staples like rice, bread, milk. If you have time to just wander round and pick out cheap end of line things with no real purpose then go ahead. Somehow it is not as fun as a pound store, but is not as useful as a supermarket. Has anyone been recently? Has it got better?