Be Excellent To Each Other

In this topsy turvy world of Englandishers and Scontlandos publicly brexiting one another in the street, the price of everything (except one's labour funnily enough) seems to have gone up a ton.

About four years ago perhaps, the lot near the end of my road (which was once a Texaco garage beside the entrance to the M53, much-loved as it represented sacks of sweets for the nice car journey to a summer holiday with my grandparents, and a pub I knew nothing about called the Twenty Row) was the site of a shiny Lidl supermarket.

Aldi and Lidl to me have always been the closest thing to walking into a parallel universe. Everything is there, exactly where it should be, but everything is completely different. I was always disappointed that the magazine racks in both shops don't feature completely made-up celebrities like they really were from another world.

Sometimes I'd go in there for little things like milk or sugar or toilet rolls, stuff that you wouldn't expect to majorly change across an interdimensional jaunt, but never for big things. Or the food stuff basically. But now, I kinda go there for all kinds of stuff, and I'm surprised.

I was inspired to write this since the price of fishfingers (Birds Eye thank you please, I don't know if Ross are still around but they better not show their face around here again) has gone up as well, and the boxes of 30 that you could easily get at Asda seem to have disappeared and everywhere now only sells them in boxes of 10 or 12.

I'm an incredible picky eater. My complete diet consists of probably less than a dozen things that I can name, and I hate trying to make do with things I'm unfamiliar with.

I'm uncertain about eating the Asda ones, only having eaten them since my mum didn't notice they were different when she got them out of the freezer and my dad gave the most parenty 'oh they looked the same in the shop I didn't know' excuse ever. Granted, they tasted pretty nice and I couldn't tell the difference but there was a principle at stake here damn it. I'm not going to be manipulated into eating unfamiliar fishfingers, nice or not. Asda foodstuff varies in quality all over the place, like the milkshake bad, the juice okay, the buns delicious IF they're soft otherwise they're terrible, ham slices delicious but sausages and sausage rolls disgusting. There doesn't seem to be a quality floor. I rely on fishfingers to live, I don't need to be worrying about that kind of crap.

Which brings us to tonight, where in the freezer we are out of fishfingers again and it's quarter past nine in the evening and I'm playing F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate and I am one hungry Hungry Gary. Lidl is less than two minutes away. What'll be the harm right? I'll get a bit of zig and a bit of zag and cook it and hopefully something will taste nice.

Well bugger me if Lidl's 'Ocean Sea' cod fish fingers aren't creamy and delicious. The potato waffles were nice too, though like a lot of potato waffles they require a ridiculously high oven setting so you can't cook anything with them unless you keep an eye on the lot constantly.

I'd had some thoroughly rank fish fingers and beefburgers as a kid. Usually at crappy birthday parties for other kids in school held at leisure centres and stuff. Rock hard tiny fish fingers and floppy greasy horrible thin burgers. It was enough to almost put me off eating food ever again.

But tonight I'm officially logging my epiphany that these crazy shops that have landed from another world are indeed here in peace.

Lidl:
Obscenely delicious strawberry 'delbona' yoghurt drinks - yoghurt you can DRINK. Like their super cheap and nice white chocolate (Aldi has delicious white chocolate too. In fact frickin' Euro Shopper, that mainstay of newsagents all over the country, has delicious white chocolate. Asda have a whole bunch of own-brand chocolate, but they DON'T DO WHITE.), I daren't touch it in case I immediately put on a stone every time I go in the shop.
The ham slices are good, which surprised the heck out of me. Bacon too. Haven't had the courage to try the sausages.
They used to have the better tinned mandarin segments out of the two shops (Asda's are FUCKING FOUL), but I think they might have changed them recently.

Aldi:
Carino raspberry shampoo, love it. Diplomat decaf tea bags.
Their Fruit & Grain bars are a rip-off off the Kellogg's Nutri-grain bars, but they're apparently ripping off the NGs from a couple generations back. NGs are crunchy and cake-like now, but FAGbars are more grainy and less sweet. I feel like I should have a pallet of these things in case of a disaster.
Peach halves. Don't think Lidl sell these.

I used to eat either peach halves and mandarin segments from a tin at work every lunchtime. It's fruit right? What do you mean it's all sugar? Geez... you try to make an effort, and all you get it 'no ur doin it wrong'.

I live with my family at the moment, but I've been wondering if I only lived next to a Lidl or Aldi, would I actually need to go to Asda or Tesco for anything now? Until Aldi or Lidl stock Wall's Sausage Rolls then I guess I'm stuck.

What stuff have you found in unusual supermarkets that you found really nice?

Aldi here do some really nice marinated meat cuts. As the meat has been sat in a bag with the marinade for a while, the yummy flavors have nicely infused the meat. And it's quite cheap too.

Most of the Aldi own brands are ok, but there's something just a little off with many of the biscuits - the crunch isn't quite right.

Yes! The less ambitious biscuits are nice, yer custard creams, bourbons, nices and malteds. (The combination pack for those is super cheapo too.) And the jam 'n' creams which are stupidly expensive in a lot of places are nice and cheap in lidl, but the 'Chocolate Oaties' which are their version of chocolate hobnobs are too hard and don't turn into the sweet mush right.

The M&M equivalents too, they are close but just not quite right, the shell isn't quite so smooth.

It's almost like that uncanny-valley thing. The Aldi biccies and sweets are so close to the brands we 'know and love', but the closer they get the more we notice those small little differences.

Lady T is a real sucker for the Aldi business model. She'll go in there and save money on our regualar shop items, but will then spend the difference (plus probably more) on the 'specials'. I don't know how much useless plastic tat we've picked up from Aldi recently.

Although, their cheapo robot vacuum cleaner is pretty good. That was a decent buy.

Aldi do various own-brand chocolate buttons, but the giant milk chocolate buttons with a runny caramel centre are frickin' amazing.

Probably a reason for that...

Lidl chili gherkins are superb.

Aldi mini 'magnums' are good, as are their 'Mars' and 'Snickers' mini bars.

We don't have a lidl or aldi round our way

I bought some nice high-ball glasses from Aldi.

They're remarkably delicate yet robust.

Haven't eaten them yet.

Yeah, if you like chocolate made out of HORSES.

Still better than Hershey's.

I don't care if they're made out of koala bears that have been bludgeoned to death with baby seals, they still taste nice.

Those chocolate and caramel buttons must be delicious 'cause they didn't have any in stock today. ;(

Have both stores 10 mins away.

Bought some fresh type pasta and salami and ham, it was pretty good.

Although both are close they are sort of out of the way so we don't go much.

Wait, it's made out of horses? Hold on, I'm just popping to Aldi!

Mmmm, fetlocky.

Aldi do a nice Pilsner, and their single malt whisky is surprisingly good.

I also get the 'parallel universe' feeling when getting into either of these stores also, but I'm not really a fan of either because it's impossible to make all of my shopping there (aldi doesn't have fresh fish market for example). And besides, their own brands are significantly inferior to the own brands of Portuguese chains.

But! Both are great for party groceries. Very cheap pretzels, peanuts, pistachios, beer and alcoholic drinks in general.

Also great muesli at Lidl

When I visited an Aldi on Wednesday (probably not the same one) they were down to their last bag (which I bought, obviously). There were plenty of the non-caramel milk and white chocolate giant buttons left.

I hope they aren't discontinuing them... Maybe they just need to round up some more horses before they can make the next batch?

Visited the same Aldi again, and was relieved to find lots of caramel giant buttons back in stock.

Can't find anything that might be horse disguised in the ingredients list, but it does list palm oil - so maybe some orang-utans were made homeless as a by-product at least.

I have some minor geographical concerns, there.

Huh, apparently not. Carry on.

Lidl butchers choice pork sausages: 6.5/10

But they're food! They don't have a horrible rubbery texture, and they taste sausage like. But since they tore themselves apart in the pan I didn't get much of a cooked taste. If you don't have a pan that's as frictionless as an air hockey table, your sausages are going to get dead by how often you need to turn them. And your frying pan is going to be an absolute state afterwards.

They're not near Richmond sausages' level. But they're better than the crap that Wall's became after about 2005. Those cumberland Wall's ones were so nice and they messed them up. Damn them to hell.

This reminds me. I had some of those caramel buttons last night.

Yeah. They're great!

Aldi's Cheese Curls are an excellent Quaver substitute.

Are we sausage snobs now? I care not for the brand but we only buy the ones labelled 97% pork on the ingredients list.

We had to settle for some 85% pork the other day and you can really taste the difference.

I recall having a bit of a Kwik Save sausage at a festival one year (like, 20 years ago). I think it was 46% meat or something like that. Even Teenage Curiosity couldn't eat it.

I dislike high percentage pork sausages for eg. a fry up.

You'll still want >50%

Anyone who considers Richmonds a "sausage" is not worthy of eating glorious pork.

I went finest years (>15) ago and once you've taken near pure meat into your mouth with such regularity over an extended period, it's hard to take down lesser, more gristly product without gagging.

I'm not even going to give you the satisfaction.

Title.

I ate the rest of those lidl ones earlier in the week and cooked them as evenly as I could in our best pan and they were still an awful mess by the end.

Today I'm feeling a little under the weather so I decided to perk myself up with an entire pack of richmonds for dinner. It's like night and AMAZING GLORIOUS SAUSAGE DAY.

Richmond's sausages are aces.

I ordered some from Ocado for the express purpose of posting a photo of them in this thread with an accompanying extended middle finger, but they didn't turn up

Got your back, bro.

Yeah!

Cor, look at my ganky fingernail.

A virtual high five to you, sir. These are fucking lovely.

Hard to tell where the fingers stop and the sausages start.

Tiny feet!

Agreed. I get a pack every time I go in the new Aldi. Which is conveniently right on the main road that I take home. Thanks, Aldi!

Last year a couple of friends served Aldi champagne at their wedding after a blind taste test held with their families proved it to be the most popular.

Are they expecting Lidl ones now?

I love you, Zardoz. You make most days just that little bit better.

Some days, you make awful, like when you post gross pictures of a crab claw bursting out of a fish belly, but generally you swing to the positive. As such, I'm glad you're a thing.

Aldi gin just rated very highly in a major tasting, and is under a tenner. Pick it up, gin people!

Thanks Mimi x

You are always welcome in my gang.

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Aldi Gin is ok. Nothing particularly special about it. My fave cheap Gin is Greenals (normally on offer at Morrisons).
There's nothing comes even close to Opihr Gin for me at the moment (cheapest on Amazon Prime)