Aj’s Diner

One of my favourite places to go for comfort food. The menu has all the usual favourites and everything is freshly made. Proper home cooked chips and wedges, lovely fresh veg and good sized portions. The best fry you will get anywhere, great value for money and extremely tasty. There are seats downstairs and 2 separate parts upstairs, AJs has expanded well over the years.
I have heard the homemade desserts are amazing but I’ve ways been too full after one course so never got around to trying them. Sometimes the staff can be a bit huffy if you ask for anything to be substituted especially on the fry but they will do it.
If you’re ever out this way AJs is the place to try.

Stopped in on our way to Downpatrick this evening. Diner was very busy with no seating available downstairs. They said there was some seats available upstairs but upon noticing that one of our party was disabled they brought us to a small area away from the crowds coming in an out to wait for a table downstairs. A table became available after 5 minutes where we were seated and well looked after.
Menu is extensive, something for everyone. Nothing fancy or fine dining, just good food and great sized portions. Everything under £10. Food arrived within 10 minutes. Prawn open sandwiches were huge. Chicken goujons had a light and delicious batter and roast beef dinner came with all the trimmings and extra gravy at no extra charge (unlike a lot of places these days).
Overall, service was great and food was very well enjoyed.
Free parking available in all the streets beside it.

Good little diner, there’s more seating upstairs but its a little bit cramped inside. Food was nice. Best going early on a weekday. It was very busy when we went one weekend.

Went there for lunch today.
Baked cod with vegetables and mashed potato.
I asked for a mineral water and it came with a glass with ice as you’d expect but they also brought a slice of lemon on a plate which was a nice touch.
Food was well priced. My total came to about £12.
Service was really good. Staff there there are always really friendly and personable.
Food was great, didn’t have to wait long and was nicely cooked.
Definitely be back. Just note that this place is always very busy at lunch and dinner times (a testament to how good the food is).

Don’t try and substitute fry items or ask for your egg to be poached (they are on the menu as ‘egg’ which suggests you can request what format). The staff don’t like it and they will get huffy, charge you more and then not apologise for not telling you it would add to your bill.

There really is nothing not to like about AJ’s. The place is pretty much what I would calls a ‘solid’ performer. Ok, so the menu isn’t going to have any shocking experimental dished on it, but that’s fine. What it will have is all the favourites, the crowd pleasers and the comfort food. The sort of stuff that you will take a fancy for on a regular or semi-​regular basis. Burger, lasagne or chicken goujons, that kind of thing. At which point you’d be very hard pressed to find a place that does them any better. Great to go any time but you’ll love it on a relaxed Sunday afternoon.

A nice wee spot though often incredibly busy with a queue all the way out the door. Food is pretty nice though.

There’s a part of me (the selfish, gluttonous part) that doesn’t want to share just how fantastic this diner is, because some nights the queues are bad enough as it is, but fairness compels me to tell you that if you want great food with first class service at a bargain price, AJs ticks every box and then some.
The menu has something for absolutely everyone, from the delicious homemade soup served with the best wheaten bread you’ll ever taste (or an optional ginormous sandwich — try the granary bread!) to plump and juicy steaks served with all the fabulously generous trimmings, or gorgeous scampi cooked to perfection, or one of their piping hot and beautifully prepared classic roasts from the specials blackboard… you really will find it hard to choose. To make matters more difficult, you see plate after plate leaving the kitchen, each piled high and each looking mouthwatering and you kick yourself that you didn’t order this, that or the other. Personally I vow to try something new every time I go in, but then I sit down and on a cold night the chicken, ham and stuffing roast dinner served with roasties, gorgeous mixed vegetables, gravy, cranberry sauce and your choice of main potato, always calls to me. It’s a real old-​fashioned rib-​sticking plate of goodness. For your choice of potato you can have champ (my personal fave — creamy and gorgeous) ordinary mash, garlic wedges (also gorgeous), baked spud, roasties, chips (never less than crispy, golden and hot) or several others that my senile brain has forgotten. There’s usually 3 or 4 roasts available as daily specials — chicken/​ham/​stuffing, roast beef, stuffed pork, and sometimes roast lamb or pork chops. And all for around 7 quid! You just won’t find better value, higher quality food anywhere.
AJs also has a great breakfast menu served until midday I believe, but there’s the all day fry which is spectacular and served whenever you want it.
I must mention the sweets menu. The number of times I’ve lovingly studied it, even when my gut’s been fit to bursting after soup and the roast, I could probably recite it from memory! I always find room for a pudding here. There’s no nouvelle cuisine nonsense where you get a little bit of pud drizzled in a tiny bit of custard at AJs — no, sir, your pud is served in a proper big bowl with enough custard to float a cruise liner in, and your choice of fresh cream or a scoop of ice cream with the hot puds. Personally, my heart belongs to hot puddings and you’re spoiled for choice at AJs. Hot chocolate fudge cake, rhubarb crumble, deep filled apple pie, rice pudding, jam sponge, sticky toffee pudding… I’m probably forgetting one here, but I must personally recommend the sticky toffee. I’d been caught in a rhubarb crumble rut (and it’s lovely too!) and decided to branch out on my last visit, and the lovely waitress recommended the toffee, and, my friends I must reveal that it is –godly-​. Steaming hot, lovingly drenched in hot toffee sauce, dark and cindery toffee-​ish with a rich caramel flavour and you can have it served with whatever you like. Because I’m a total pig I went for the custard and ice cream and it was bloody beautiful.
Other sweet options include — profiteroles, ice cream sundaes, pavlova, knickerbocker glory, strawberry romanoff, lemon meringue, banoffee trifle, strawberry cheesecake and a load more, including a selection of traybakes. Heaven for the sweet-​toothed!
For my money, AJs is simply the best restaurant in the district for quality, service and value. I’ve never had a bad meal here and the staff are uniformly pleasant, obliging and incredibly efficient. Nothing’s too much trouble and they all work really hard to make the place what it is. If you’re in the area (hell, even if you have to make a trip!) then you really do owe it to yourself and your belly to call into AJs and enjoy a proper meal.

UPDATE: Went here twice on my most recent trip. Still good comfort food. And the sticky toffee pudding remains amazing.

AJs is treated with almost reverential respect in the local region, and no customer e has a bad word to say about it. Why? Because it does solid, quality food and at reasonable prices.
There are a range of delicious options throughout the day. There are delicious fries, filled soda and scones and tray bakes for a lovely breakfast. There are a range of sandwiches and soups for lunch and then a wide range of options for dinners.
There are the usually options like burgers, chicken Maryland’s and other popular dinner options, and a range of changing daily specials which will include pies, steaks, meat specialties and roast dinners.
The roast dinners are brilliant, with wonderfully prepared veg and generous portions of chicken and ham. The deserts here are also great, with the sticky toffee puddings and jam sponge and custard personal comforting favourites.
Nothing in here is groundbreaking at all, it is just done really really well. Bravo!