This is a chiefly a foodhall and cafe but the cafe and the public toilets are shut courtesy of the…read moredarn Wu flu. We are becoming tired of this damn virus and it's tedious to have to queue outside to limit numbers, which isn't pleasant in our cool, damp climate. As I've said in other reviews M&S is my food store of choice and full praise to the staff who turn up to work in these strange times. It's also not simply because of the ace quality that it's always my first choice, for me it's trust. Their in - house bakeries and deli's are fab, their cheeses are fab and their ready meal choices are ace too to name only a very few of the great choices. And I'm not alone they have a solid, loyal customer base. They'll do the right thing. I don't have the same faith in Asda, Tesco, etc. I see Waitrose in the same way as M&S but we still don't have Waitrose in NI - they did intend to set up here years ago now but a very wealthy but self-serving Lisburn businessman funded legal challenges that kept them out and they lost interest. This M&S is in a pretty large industrial estate that runs alongside the M1 motorway and has developed well beyond its initial purpose. The Boucher Road was originally meant to be a place for large scale factory employment and manufacturing based industrial enterprise when it was first developed by the department of commerce 60 years ago (it became the Industrial Development Board) and is now Invest NI. All this happened before the Tories turned the UK economy mostly to a service-based one. Now they must re grow manufacturing post departing Europe having spent 45 years dismantling it. Now Boucher Road has a diverse set of businesses that reflect a service economy- for instance car showrooms like BMW, Volvo, Jaguar. It has Costa, Starbucks, Mc Donald's, KFC. Then the junk shops like BM Bargains and the Range (the latter incorporates an Iceland). I'd guess the businesses here now run into the hundreds and not a factory to be found. Still it's an ill wind....

Marks and Spencers Simply Food is a place I wish I could shop in all the time for my weekly shop…read more But as Peter K keenly observed I'd only ever use it to get my bits and not my main shop! Marks and Spencers can make the modest ready meal into something spectacular. The main time I would go here is when M&S have their famous dine in for £10 offer in which you can get a starter, ingredients for a main, a desert and a bottle of wine. Bargain! The food is of such good quality that you know their making a loss on the offer and just trying to convince the customer to come back again, but I'll stick to this offer but once a moon!

Lidl is a supermarket chain in these parts. Nice bakery & very fair priced basic wines. We have…read morebeen to a couple different ones.Full on grocery with lots of choices for fruits,veggies, cheeses etc. No deli. Prepackaged meats.

I started to use Lidl simply because it was closer to my house than Tesco. Shorter distance to…read morecarry loads of heavy, fresh veg and big bottles of fizzy water! It was only then that I realised it was actually quite good. Fruit and veg arrives daily with nice additions like papaya, watermelons, kumquats and persimmons. The little bakery has fresh baked bread made on site along with pastries, buns, donuts, cookies and scones. All really well priced. There is a big selection of regular bagged breads, pancakes and wraps etc. Also gluten free ranges of bread, rolls and rice/corn cakes. Irish, grass fed beef is pretty good. Reasonably big range of fresh meat and already cooked. The beef pastrami is very good! The constant rotation of different county produce each month is a great addition. Things like lovely Greek yogurt, olives, spreads and very good pittas from Greece, baklava, hummus and beans from Turkey or flavoured oils, vinegars and cured meats from Spain. The have 10 pack of Belgium caramel waffles at £1.50 that taste exactly like Starbucks 2 pack that cost about 62 quid There is a forever changing middle section with homeware, kitchenware, gardening, tools, school stuff and fitness etc. The alcohol section has some super cheap beer and cider deals. Most of the spirits are cheaper brands(the ones that give killer hangovers) Some things to avoid: The herbs/spices, they are pretty wick apart from the white pepper. Baresa olives! The black ones are awful. Dentalux toothpaste. The staff are mostly friendly.

Yeah I know its a Tesco's and hardly a local independent business but shush! It's my Tesco's. This…read morestore seems to have quite a student feel to it. Unlike a lot of the other Tesco's, it always feels like they started to make it look nice then decided to cover the bits they didn't do with food. It does provide a very cheap weeks shopping, I get all I need for my belly for around £20 a week which is cracking value. Whilst you need to be careful with some of their own brand stuff, a lot of it is as good as the big names, just in plain packaging.

I live next to Tesco so for me that in itself is reason to go. It is cheaper than any of the other…read moreindependent stores (but not necessarily better quality food) but it is one of the smaller ones in Northern Ireland. Thus the store does not often have everything you need, and if you happen to find yourself stuck in it anytime between 5 and half 6, you are likely to be stuck in a massive queue. I work in a shop so I have a certain affinity with what these people have to go through, but some of the staff look desperately unhappy in their job and as we are beaten with the customer service stick so much, I think this particular Tesco store should have a retraining too because the staff do not seem to care at all with what they are doing. On the plus side, it is probably the cheapest place for groceries on the Lisburn Road and the alcohol offers are incredible compared to pub prices.

Sainsbury's is my favourite supermarket. Its quality products are the best available and it sells a…read moregreat range of items. I'm a fan of their vegetarian foods and Sainsbury's own brand items (love Sainsbury's Nut Cutlets and veggie mince). They have the best labelling of all the supermarkets with all their own brand products clearly labelled as to whether or not they are vegetarian or BUAV approved (not tested on animals). In addition their brand match scheme ensures you don't pay more with Sainsbury's than with another supermarket. As per Sainsbury's website "When you buy ten or more different products, we'll tot up the comparable brands in your basket. If you could have paid less at Asda - even because of the deal - we'll give you a coupon for the difference off your next shop." I always use my brand match vouchers at my next Sainsbury's grocery shop. Plus their wine selection is superior to all other supermarket selections. Quality store with unbeatable prices, pleasant to browse and lovely, helpful staff. Perfect. At Christmas and New Year Sainsbury's have a special range of fabulous food you can order and collect in store, I would especially recommend the: *Three nut roast with cranberry sauce *Butternut & mushroom en croute *Limoncello buche de Noel If you want indulgent, treat foods try Sainsbury's 'Taste The Difference' range. This blows every other supermarkets 'luxury' items clean out of the water. Definitely the best you'll get, bar none.

Sainsbury's is the main supermarket in the Forestside shopping centre, so for this reason it is…read morealways packed, no matter what time of the day it is. The supermarket has all the stuff you would expect and more, and is a good place to get all your weekly shop done. They have a very large fruit and veg section, complete with salad bar if you are that way inclined, with a very large delicatessen meat and cheese counter. The store also has a large range of magazines, books, CDs, DVDs and games, and is always worth a check for a better price if you are about to buy a recently released item from HMV. As for the rest of the store there is a large range of everything as you would expect. The store has its own cafe which is good for pacifying those who have been dragged along or those who have worked up a hunger in their arduous shopping trip! The store also has installed self scanning machines, which is a real boost to customers as they can get in and for a few items much faster than in the past! I will sign off with a tip: try the white chocolate and cranberry cookies from here. You will not find a better cookie from any supermarket, pinky promise!

Chiefly a Marks food hall on a very busy main city road; it's filled with coffee bars - a great mix…read moreof small independent places as well as the international chain coffee places. It has a lot of Indian restaurants (actually the majority are Bangladeshi folks and not Indian people) with lots of expensive residential properties and student housing around the surrounding streets. The surrounding area has Queens university, private clinics a private hospital and 3 major NHS hospitals. I was in around 4pm and it was so very quiet, not even a handful of shoppers. It's located off the main Lisburn road with a private parking lot. I walked in to do some shopping (teriyaki salmon, Alaskan wild red sockeye salmon, Bao buns and a few other other goodies). It's hard to believe that they have already begun stocking the shelves with Christmas goodies. I'm quite sure it's a pay to park place, but as long as you are parked for under two hours and spend I think £10 in M&S your parking charges are waived. I prefer the M&S food hall about 10 minutes drive away on Boucher road but only because it has an M&S cafe.

I am a big fan of M&S food and so regularly frequent these simply food outlets. This one is a has a…read morefew things going for it that makes it slightly better. It has ample parking out the front which is handy when you are in a hurry. It is also one of the larger simply food establishments I have been in and seems to be kept very well stocked, sometimes when you go to M&S for lunch after about 1pm there is very little to choose from. It has self-service tills, I like these the last thing I want to be doing on my lunch break is making small talk about the weather. I would definitely recommend this over the Boucher Road which often sells out of 'food on the move' and is a total nightmare to park at.

Not the biggest of tescos I've been in, but it does the trick. It has all the essentials needed and…read moreit also has parking outside (if your lucky to get a spare that is) the parking isn't free during the day but is after 6pm. This store Opens until 11pm Monday to Sunday which is good to.

Tesco has a convenient unit in Kingsway, Dunmurry, in what's officially known as "Kingsway shopping…read morecentre" although there are only a handful of shops here (see my review). This isn't the biggest Tesco you'll ever be in but you can be sure you'll get the vast majority of products that Tesco stocks. Its long opening hours means you can get home and get your dinner without having to rush to do the shopping - it's open until 10p.m. every night except Sunday. It seems to have a nice steady flow of customers and, while I haven't been on a Saturday (people who go grocery shopping on a Saturday are clearly insane, or trying some type of intensive experimental treatment to conquer agoraphobia) I have been at other traditionally busy times and it's been fine - no lengthy queues, no long waits. This is in stark contrast to its enormous sister store in Newtonbreda, which should have traffic lights and roundabouts in store for the flow of trolleys. A pleasant enough, stress-free place to do your shopping at a leisurely pace. As I said though, I haven't been there on a Saturday. Maybe I've just been lucky. Doubtless other Yelpers will help form a more accurate opinion...

There is two seperate stores a clothes and household department and a grocery store. I worked in…read morethe clothes household department when I was at school as a part time job. Store is well maintained but does not have a great of selection as some of the other Dunnes Stores such as in Forestside.

For American Information, Tesco is a European convenience store chain. Think QT or 7-Eleven meets…read morea bodega. Founded over a century ago in England, they are in five countries. This express store offers liquors, snack cakes and sundry. Locals shop here, but to an American it would probably seem small for a supermarket. The lines aren't too long, and I run in for the odd pack of gum or sweets. The prices are competitive, and they offer teas and coffee vended drinks.

This is a smaller, 'bitesize' version of the megastore you get dotted around the country. This…read moreparticular Express version isn't that great. Although the prices are the same as their bigger versions, the selection is poor. Even though this is supposed to be the 'essentials', the shelves are often empty and the security man at the door makes you feel like you are shoplifting even though you aren't. Chances are what you want isn't in this shop. It's a mish mash of bits and pieces, but it simply isn't good enough. I'd recommend walking a little further, or driving on down to the Lisburn Road shop and get what you need from there. Disappointing and painfully small

Another one for all you shoppers out there. Once you've had your fill of shopping in the city…read morecentre (see my reviews on CastleCourt and Victoria Square), there's still a few places left to burn out the credit card. Just a five minute drive from the city centre, Boucher Road has quite a few shops in it, most of which are located in Boucher Crescent Retail Park or Shane Retail Park (see my review on Shane retail park). There are men and women's clothing shops (River Island, Next, Burton, the Jeanery...), a sports shop, HMV, Starbuck's, Boots... the list goes on. There's a hell of a lot of space dedicated to parking here, but it can still be very difficult to get a space on a Saturday or Sunday. It's not a mall type place where you can get lost in, it's one of those places where the shops are all lined up in a row and you come out of one shop and into the next one - good for methodical shoppers, or those who don't have a lot of time. The downside is that the traffic on the Boucher Road can be crazy between 4 and 6p.m. But, if you're a visitor and you're out for a day's shopping, get yourself a 'day ticket' (see my Translink review) and you can take a trip up here before/after shopping in the city centre.

Boucher Road Crescent Retail Park is a handy spot for shopping if you don't fancy going into the…read moreCity Centre. It has a huge variety of shops including River Island, Outfit, Lipsy, Newlook, Next, Boots and much much more. Oh and there's a few car manufacturers nearby if you fancy treating yourself to a new Audi TT