Food giant of choice

[Rich Hero]

Nope, no music in this one but I just thought I'd start a new topic following the opinions expressed in other threads...

For myself, the default for groceries is Sainsbury's (100 yards from the flat) and for a fast food fix is BK (Mac D's is simply too synthetic).



Yours?

[Tommo of Sprowston]

Fine choices, sir, but the Tescos/Greggs axis is unlikely to be shifted for me.

[Matt Hero]

Jeez Rich, you must be bored ! Got no snipes to set up ?

Anyway, I am a happy Waitrose'n'M&S food shopper - which I can afford due to my famous lack of appetite. I once lived in a town with only a Kwik Save and a Somerfields for food and I never want to repeat *that* experience.

Also, if a civil war breaks out in the UK based on whether BK or McDonalds is the fast food of choice, I will be on the front lines waving the flame grilled flag.

[Nick Cope]

My fave is the fast food place by the Old Street roundabout because it has a sign made from the first letters of each thing they sell: Fried Chicken Kebab Fish & Fries - FCKFF - Or, Fuck Off!

I'd take a shish kebab over any other junk food anyday - I mean, it can't be that bad right? Grilled chunks of fresh lamb or chicken, in a pitta with fresh salad, onions, shredded cabbage...

... um, gotta go!

[Rich Hero]

Quote[/b] (Matt Hero @ 04 June 2003,13:47)]Jeez Rich, you must be bored ! Got no snipes to set up ?

Auctionstealer appears to be down, so no. Anyway, I was clean for a whole week last week, all my watched items ended without me bidding.



And for those that don't know, Matt is also known as 'Kitten Boy' by the other Heros because of his immense appetite...

[theeman]

how come a man with such frugal tastes in vinyl has such expensive tastes in grub? and paint if i remember our drunken converstaion at the last Brillo meet correctly?

[Matt Hero]

Quote[/b] (theeman @ 04 June 2003,14:07)]how come a man with such frugal tastes in vinyl has such expensive tastes in grub? and paint if i remember our drunken converstaion at the last Brillo meet correctly?

Farrow & Ball rocks I think we spend longer talking about the difficulties of migrating SQL queries across formats fella... which is marginally sadder.

Food is probably the only expense where I won't scrimp.... spend far too many years having to walk around the super market with a calculator, or worse hand things back at the checkout because I didn't have the cash. So I appreciate being able to just buy what I want... it's all Royal Dutchy bacon & M&S Raspberry Pana Cotta for me these days

So *thats* why I'm on 50 notes month for my record budget !

[ladyboygrimsby]

Ah, a subject dear to my heart (and stomach). My nearest supermarket is Budgens, but it's stupendously crap. So I go to Sainsbury's for some food, although they're nowhere near as good as they think they are (their Taste The Difference range is, largely, overpriced shit). I go to Tesco's when I can, because their high-range products are better. It has to be Waitrose and/or M&S for puddings. Waitrose do the best commercially made apple pie.

Then there's a fab little Italian deli in Kensal Rise where I get olives and suchlike; cheese from Neal's Yard; pastries and bread from Chez Paul in Covent Garden (my wife's family is French, innit?); fresh fish from a van that comes down from Grimsby.

Can you tell I used to be a chef? (well, it looks a bit a like a chef's hat...)

[Rich Hero]

Quote[/b] (ladyboygrimsby @ 04 June 2003,14:46)]Can you tell I used to be a chef? (well, it looks a bit a like a chef's hat...)

So was Daddy Bones at Grand Slam.

My gripe with Sainsbury's is their stock keeping. I can pretty much guarantee they won't have the herbs I need in stock (insert joke here...) and they never have loose mushrooms. Do they really think I want to buy a whole pack for just one meal? Plus they carry some products on the most unintuitive shelves at times.

As for Waitrose, their roast chickens rule! Especially at the end of the day when they're going cheap (insert joke... nah, don't bother). And I don't necessarily think they're really more expensive but they know impulse buyers (me) better than the other supermarkets. But I hate the 'considerably better than youse' customers in my local store.

And I work with a lot of Portuguese who all love their seafood. A guy in our lab used to go to Billingsgate regularly to buy his crabs and lobsters (he's a dad so he was up at that time anyway) and I went once. Amazing place, although I did go to sleep when I got back only to wake up later in the day with my room stinking of fishy clothes.

[theeman]

Quote[/b] (ladyboygrimsby @ 04 June 2003,14:46)]their Taste The Difference range is, largely, overpriced shit

i wondered if anyone else thought that, because so far i haven't been able to (taste the difference, that is)

sainsbury's for food, waitrose for the best supermarket wines (we don't have a local one so can't comment on the food), BK for fast food... although I'm with Nick C on the kebab thing - there's a superb Turkish kebab place on Upper St beyond the green...

i've got a monster sweet tooth so m&s for puddings. cakes from konditor & cook down by Waterloo. lots of cheese and veg from Borough Market if we can be arsed to get up early. the meat from there is good, too, especially the Cumbrian lamb.

[wayne]

Quote[/b] (Nick Cope @ 04 June 2003,13:59)]My fave is the fast food place by the Old Street roundabout because it has a sign made from the first letters of each thing they sell: Fried Chicken Kebab Fish & Fries - FCKFF - Or, Fuck Off!

Only in Shoreditch, eh?

Up in Walthamstow it was always Sainbury's, or the waitrose on the Holloway Road; here in Nottingham it's been the Castle Marina Sainsbury or the Victoria Centre Tesco, but we're trying to source organic produce from a local home-delivering farmer's co-op that delivers seasonal stuff over the web - not only better, but looking like it's gonna actually be CHEAPER too, even after delivery costs are factored in.

Plus my mate has a nearby allotment with some spare patches, & my girlfriend's dad is overproducing veg out in the Leistershire countryside at a rate that keeps our fridge pretty full... All this hunting for righteous grub is, sadly, the forced result of having just sold our clapped out motor, so being unable to drive to Sainsbury's anymore...

For a fast food fix, there's nowt I want that I've found here in Nottingham (Sie & Benicio might have a few pointers, though?): so far, I'm seriously missing the quality of Indian, Pizza & Chinese you could pick up the phone for back in London...

And favorite food related record (since this is the VV board)? At the moment, Jack McDuff's 'Hot Barbecue'...

[sermad]

Fave food related record?

Gotta be Wynder K Frogs 'out of the frying pan'.

Awesome cover.

[Nick Cope]

I also used to cook for a living, albeit a short while... For a truly depressing experience, pop into the Lower Clapton Somerfield... ugh...

My nearest Tescos also has crap stock, though they have been doing okay on the herb front lately but they're still too stingy... as for potted basil - never heard of anything so dumb in my life - except maybe selling tiny bunches of corriander with no root...

I fucking hate supermarkets - almost as much as the advertising industry - I hate the way that branches of Tescos, Asda etc will bump up their prices in poor areas because they know that their demographic won't have the time, transport or money to go further than their local area for better food..... The Competition Commission brought this up a few years back, somewhow, it's mysteriously disappeared - probably a compromise to allow the governement to enquire about sugar levels - forget about salt though!

um, rant over (again)

But oh yeah, the point of this post... I never buy fruit and veg from a supermarket, my local turkish grocers have some really nice stuff often... and the turkish butchers sells some quite nice meat... but i do have a nasty habitof buying Tesco fresh(ish) tortellini, cos it's super fast to make and eat with black olive pesto...

[theeman]

big barney - 'i can't believe i ate the whole thang'

[wayne]

Come to think of it, Brillo Fresh isn't a bad name for a grocers... Bit of diversification in the pipeline, then? Racks of records, loose mushrooms, fried chicken...