Lots of frozen 'Delux' stuff currently going in Lidl either half price, buy one get one free, or other money off.

We've finally got a bakery in our store! I've been reading about it from some of the posts on here - loving the rye bread but I'm on a diet so I have to 'admire' most of the other items.

With what looks like warm weather on the way, be careful when you take things from the bakery shelves. My local Lidl has had a bakery for a couple of years now and in the summer the thing is covered in flies!

You see them crawling all over the croissants, cheese twists and other stuff, as it's all just left out in the open.

It's for that reason that I only buy croissants at any time of day during the winter. In the warmer months, I'll only take them if they've just been put out. And I never use the tongs because I suspect they're never washed.

I'm a real snob when it comes to avoiding hatching insect eggs in my stomach and gastric worms.

Lidl opened up a new store in my hometown yesterday.
The old one was so cramped, you had to go single file through the aisles. The new one, on a top location in a prestigious new development, is enormous (2200 m2). People with agoraphobia best stay away. Everything is new and shiny and the layout is much better. But best of all, there now is a bakery. I love it.
Excellent stuff at much lower prices than the competition.

Good - mini bradwurst
Good - lasagne
Good -spaghetti hoop in sauce
Good - sonney butter biscuits with milk chocolate on

Lidl

I've stopped going into Lidl since the makeover. The main point of it used to be value, but now many of the prices are on a par with the nearby Sainsburys. I don't find the bakery impressive either and suspect that its main purpose is to act as a glorified air freshener.

Haha, indeed, the "fresh baked bread" smell is so intense, you can almost make a sandwich with it.

Well well...just recently went to my local Lidl for the first time and I have to say the quality of just about everything I bought was very good.

Good:
Pistachios
Free Range Eggs (6 large for 99p and they were BIG)
Seafood Sticks (10) - Interesting, they taste like how seafood sticks USED to taste (i.e. nice) vs the Tesco ones which are not only smaller but are unmitigatingly repulsive
Vitafit Pure Squeezed Orange Juice
Cucumber (Dirty great massive one for 50p vs my local Tesco which is 45p for HALF and is thinner as well lol)
Cumberland Sausages (6)
Chestnut mushrooms
Loose onions
Luxury coleslaw - this is yummy
Casaburo Olive Spread - very nice
Rivercote part-baked white baguette rolls
McEnnedy Peanut Butter (crunchy)
GranArom Highland Gold (100% Arabica) coffee - I was shocked how nice this was for the price
And the strawberries and raspberries were very good too.

Bad:
Honestly? Nothing. Admittedly it wasn't a massive shop but the things I did buy were very good. I didn't like the look of some of the fresh veg but it was very late in the day. In fact it was near closing time.

One thing I did notice were the sweet potatoes - I actually laughed out loud when I saw them - they were like fecking rugby balls. HUGE!!!!! I have never in my life seen sweet potatoes as big as that or any potato for that matter, seriously...you could feed a family of 4 with just one.

Finally, I grabbed a pack of 4 genuine Cadbury Crunchie bars for 99p which I thought was a bargain. First time I've had one in over a decade..damn they were nice. And I like the price of the milk which is only a quid for a 4 pinter.

I'll no doubt go back there soon as I was well impressed, so will report back if I find anything not to my liking.

Bad: Tinned salmon.

Actually its not bad, more the fact I don't know because I can't get into the dang thing!

Literally spent an hour with the tin opener on it and the best I've done is scratch all around the side.

That's £2 down the drain

corn beef is bad in the tin as well as the brown n tomato sauce
everything else is good

I'll never stop singing the praises of Lidl's Freeway cola - just as nice as the big brand stuff, and 20% of the cost. And the Irn Bru knock-off's not bad either.

I'd steer clear of the McEnnedy's range of sauces though, not exactly what I'd call "tasty".

One thing I'm gutted about is that they've stopped doing cheese lasagnes - they were ruddy delicious. The bolognese ones are nice too, but these were something else. And they've stopped doing those packs of potatos in cheese sauce as well

[/unhealthy]

My main complaint is that it seems to be heading in the direction of Kwik Save.
The standard stuff is high quality so why on earth do they need any Basics type stuff.
Plus they have more branded items thus reminding me of Kwik Save.

The problem there is that the concept is good quality non branded, mainly real food items.
The management and staff of Kiwik Save were appalling so its not the same, but drift in concept could be an undoing.

Lidls crab sticks are rubbish and taste nothing like crab sticks used to taste. Not as bad as sainsbury's basics or Young's though.

Even buying them from shellfish stalls and the Vici Premium ones from Waitrose, they still aren't the same.

And I advise people to never buy the imitation lobster tails because they are worse than any crab stick I've tried.

McEnnedy pizza's from Lidl, avoid.

I like the stone baked four cheese pizza from Aldi.

People buy what they know and I have never tried them.

Yes I found their lasagnes great too. There is nothing wosrse than cheap wet lasagne.

I have to admit, I bought another pack of them and I wasn't quite as enthusiatic the second time around. Whether or not it was because I'd gone from such dismal ones in Tesco straight to the Lidl ones I don't know, but I'm not sure if I'll buy any more to be honest. The texture is right and the length is good, but the taste is just not quite 'there' if you know what I mean. (ooh err...) But given the choice between all the ones I've tried recently, I'd still edge towards the Lidl ones I think.

Some 20-odd years ago when I had a brief encounter as a potman in a social club, there used to be this bloke who came round with a basket of assorted seafood. The crab-sticks were really nice. Wish we could get those back again They all seem to made down to a budget nowadays though, like everything else... Whatever you do, don't get the Tesco ones, it's like eating a jellyfish (not that I've eaten a jellyfish but this is how I imagine they'd be!)

But the rest of my 'good' list I'm happy with.

I really like the Freeway Orange (non diet version). At least this sweetener free unlike most other soft drinks I could name. I also used to really like the Freeway Cloudy lemonade but they seem to have done away with it. They only seem to have the diet version now which is disgusting.

Are they even called Crab Sticks any more?
I don't like them myself but I thought they had to change name to Ocean Sticks because there is no actual crab in them?

Nah, not one iota of crab in them. Mostly surimi fish protein, sugar, colours and flavourings. I wonder if they ever had any crab in them?

That good eh?

It would be folly for Lidl/Aldi not to stock a few branded items - otherwise people would just go to the main supermarket and get everything in one go - at least by stocking some branded items they can have a better chance of people doing more shopping in their stores.

First time I ever tried crab sticks, cockles and whelks was from the the seafood man who used to come round the local pub when I was a kid.

Back then crab sticks were so juicy and tasty and actually tasted of crab.

They were so good I used to suck the juice from the empty wrapper.

Now they just seem to taste sweet and are quite dry and starchy.

The Vici premium ones have a nice texture and are a bit juicy but they taste strange.

I miss the old crab sticks so much.

I don't know where you live, but you should get down to your local fish market - rather than the processed stuff you get through supermarkets, you'll get the fresh out of the sea stuff. I used to live in Aberdeen a long time ago, and every now and then me and my dad would drive up to Scrabster just to get the freshest fish possible. Some of the halibut we got from there made me cry tears of happiness, it was that good. We could have just gone to Aberdeen market but the Scrabster fish was to die for.

They don't catch halibut so much up there these days, but they do do brown crab. If you ever get chance, I highly recommend a visit up to Scrabster, in particular to here:

http://www.captainsgalley.co.uk/joomla/

[/offtopic]

To my small list of "bad" Lidl items, I have to add the frozen Wiener schnitzels. The pork they use is disgusting and doesn't taste a tiny bit like pork at all.

Another item on the "bad" list: Grafenwalder wheat beer. I suppose it's palatable to someone who doesn't drink wheat beers regularly, but I do (favourite being Schneider Weisse, with the odd Erdinger Dunkel thrown in for good measure) and this tastes wrong. To be honest, it tastes as if someone's just added a bit of wheat flavouring after brewing, it's definitely as cheap as it tastes.

Shame, really, I was looking forward to buying one of the 5l barrels Lidl sell