Being half Finnish I'm quite happy to see the recent emergence of Polish shops springing up all…read moreover Bristol. Finland may not be Eastern Europe but a lot of the smells and types of food are similar. Take the cooked meats for example or the different hams and sausages. In a glance you could see nice looking sausages for a couple of quid, or you could look closer and see memories of barbecues under the eternal Scandinavian sunshine - taste the oak smoked flavours and remember a far off home. The vast piles of beer and wine may also look like a stack of bargain booze to one customer, but to another they are thoughts and memories of times past and old friends. You see, shops like this strive very hard to stock specific products - in this case Polish. For those that don't know, they offer new tastes, smells and ideas. For those that know however, there's a wealth of old tastes, smells that remind you of houses, people and places forgotten, and memories. This is also a good place to find colourful cartons of multi-vegetable and high energy drinks, as well as notices for employment and accommodation with other foreign speakers.

Eastern strikes again!…read more Another source of fresh fruit and veg, and a great selection of world foods! Rehans is a great shop on stapleton road, if your a fan of your fresh foods (and good tasting for that matter) it's a great place to come. The massive selection of different cultural foods is also impressive. Although I do have to plead ignorance to much of it as I usually just go in for my bits and bobs of fruit and Veg... but I am sure it all meets to the standards of the fresh food! Rehans a yellow and green becon drawing in all the great and good of Eastern, almost guiding each and everyone to a healthy(er) lifestyle. Right buy Toveys fishmongors as well so your food shoping is pretty much set with these two stores!

Advertising themselves as purveyors of African, Caribbean, Asian and English food Rehan Foodstore…read morehas big boots to fill, but does the job pretty well. Unfortunately for them there are a lot of other shops on Stapleton Rd selling similar foods so they aren't quite as unique as they could be. There's a pretty decent fruit and veg section outside selling the standard stuff plus some extras for the locals such as yucca. The Big Avocado's are the main reason I come here, especially since learning they can be used to replace eggs in cakes and bread! Aside from the usual stacks of White Lightning and Special Brew there are many good dried foods here such as dried lime and bitter. Interestingly you can also get your mits on some beetroot powder - should you necessitate. Quite an intriguing little shop this one.

I really like this supermarket. It's good quality and not crazily priced…read more They also make incredible Currys that are very good value for money!!!

Bristol Sweet Mart has been on St Marks Rd for quite some time now, having been rated one of the…read morebest businesses in the UK. It was interesting to see if they would expand (and how) or if they would continue to run the same. The Deli is the latest addition to this little empire, delivering a unique taster of some foods you wouldn't find in your standard high street deli. Lamb kebabs for 99p (think traditional not pitta bread and mayo), some truly delicious paneer and a sweet section better than Willy Wonka's front lawn are some examples of this new enterprise. The service is as professional, friendly and polite as the main store and similarly I'd be surprised if it doesn't do very well indeed.

For those of you who don't know St. Marks too well you could be forgiven for thinking that it is…read morethe hub for fresh foods and Halal meats... in fact, you'd arguably be correct. Raja food stores is another brilliant example of fresh foods, and variety of choice. The one thing that does put me off is that it's on a bit of a main road and there is alot of food on display outside which sort of puts you off wanting to buy it. Don't worry though because there is plenty of choice on the inside so make sure you don't just walk past ... get your but inside! Raja food is a little cheaper than the sweet mart I feel, not massivley though. I think it's always good too have a bit of competition and variety, as everyone gets bored eventually of going to the same shop! Another thing this shop has in it's favour is the colour scheme, I challenge you to walk by and not notice it, I mean after all who can resist seeing a yellow and green shop and not walking in, it takes a strong person I tell you!

The Yellow & Green colour scheme that adorn's the shop's front really is quite enticing, it also…read morereminds alot of Norwich City Football Club, a team who a good riend of my youth supports, not because he is from Norwich, but because he once saw them on TV and thought they'd be a good team to follow - since then they have been nothing but a dissappointment to him. Anyway, Raja Food Stores sells a great selection of fresh foods, much like the other stores in the area, so nothing really makes it stand apart from the rest (apart from the Yellow & Green). The guys working in here are very friendly, and the prices of their goods are pretty reasonable. A nice place to browse and pick up a few good deals!

There is a great wealth of Halal food places in Eastern which is fantastic…read more A friend of mine who's just moved to Bristol used to speak about his difficulty in finding Halal meat, or a variety of sources, but after a my discovery in Eastern he has been very pleased. He cooked me a meal with meat from Pak Butchers (I should know where it came from - had to give him a hand with all his bags of shopping when he went there!), and I though it was pretty good, weather or not it was everything he cooked it with, or if it was down to the meat is something i'll never know. I did think at the time that he was paying a little too much, but I gues you pay for the quality of the meat. Also a sub note... anyone fancy giving me a hand next time I have to carry my friends shopping? ... I nearly put my back out!

Serving the Islamic communities of Cardiff and Bristol Pak Butchers are now front runners in Halal…read moreand hand slaughtered meat and poultry. They offer a massive range of meat that is for both wholesale and retail. I'm not a huge meat eater so shops absolutely ram packed with the stuff aren't really my cup of tea, but you can swipe up some pretty unique numbers such as King Fish and whole mutton. It does seem to be a shop geared mainly at the many restaurants on St Marks rd that offer Halal meat, so it's little wonder they are so keen on hygiene. With more food storage and health and safety certificates than you can shake a stick at, when I do need to buy meat this is definitely a safe bet.

Rodak is an incredibly new business on Stokes Croft providing the Polish community with traditional…read moreproducts. Open only for a week they're already contemplating increasing their opening hours due to such good business. The service is polite and friendly regardless if you're Polish or not. The stock, however, is entirely Polish. From the packs of freeze dried vegetables to the gherkins, pickles and sauces it is all foreign to me. This is one of the main reasons I like such shops - they're different. I enjoy not being able to understand what something is until I get it home and eat it, and sometimes even then I'm none the wiser! I love being able to sample foods from other countries and cultures without having to leave my home town. It is this variety that really is the spice of life.

I am a big fan of seeing Bristol slowly embracing the diverse communities that are on offer, and…read morewhat they can bring to the City and the people of Bristol. With so many Polish, Vietenamese, Chinese etc shops popping up throughout the City from Bedminster to Clifton means that average Joe's like myself have so many new foods introduced into my life that I otherwise may have never heard of! Bonus! Rodak, although a Polish shop, isn't entirely full fo Polish goods, there are many things that will not be new to you and I such as many pickled goods, but you will find many things your cupboard has never seen in it's lifetime! Worth a look!

I don't know what's happening to all of the speciality food shops and general stores that provide…read morelocal convenience in the outskirts of the inner city, but it looks like the proprietors and their staff have been taking a course of some kind of OCD treatment. Gone is the haphazard stacking of over-burdened shelves, and the perilous piles of boxes of unrecognizable products cluttering the floors. And Maliks is no exception. In fact, it is an impressive example of intelligent product allocation and order. But, I guess, with the scope of the product that they carry these days, they had little option other than to get it all as neatly stacked as possible. Specialising in Afro-Caribbean foodstuffs as well as health and beauty products, they have grown into a reasonably unique entity, owing to the sheer range of brands that they carry. These days they have expanded their business to on-line shopping, and can deliver anywhere in Europe. I use Maliks for spices and the occasional beauty product, and called in the other day to try and find some bleach for my hair that actually works. Since, 7:7 it's been impossible to buy bleaching kits that actually work, and have been wandering around with a curiously orange tinged blonde look ever since. The manager recommended a cream peroxide. When I applied it I was convinced that it was going to work. Nothing could be quite so painful to the scalp without being effective... or so I thought! Truth is, that it didn't make a blind bit of difference. Any advice you can offer would be very gladly received!

At the start of Stapleton Road, there is a little shop called Malik's. I say little, but when you…read morewalk in, you realise it's quite big and all the aisles are well stocked and bursting at the seams. They are an off-license shop and also a hair specialist shop specialising in Afro-Caribbean goods, and sell practically everything you might need. It's my run-to store when I've realised I've run out of toothpaste, aubergines, cashews, ginger beer, cheese, canned soup, cereal. . . you get the gist! I did mean it when I said they have practically everything! The foods sold here are interesting too, like many different yams, jamaican breads and all kinds of frozen fish. There are also tonnes of packets of herbs and spices to stock your kitchen. The family who run it are really friendly, and are always happy to help. Next door is their hair and beauty care supplies shop, which provide wigs, skin care and cosmetics. A nice shop, that's great for daily groceries, or for last minute pick ups, for when you're on the way to a party and have forgotten to bring anything. Thumbs up!

Another very recent business to Stokes Croft, Horyaal Food store has the potential to do rather…read morewell. With several student housing blocks nearby, as well as some longstanding high rises, Horyaal has found a niche for a fresh meat and food store. Previous to Abdulah the owner opening up two weeks ago there were minimal places to get fresh fruit and vegetables, for example, between the city centre and residential areas like Montpelier and Stokes Croft. With a wide selection of fruit juice and tinned goods (mostly on the bulk / wholesale side of things), as well as its Halal meat section this shop looks likely to stick about.