In the run up to Christmas, I make an annual trip to Lidl for German gingerbread, as it's the best…read moreand cheapest place I know to buy it, and Christmas wouldn't seem right without it. Last year I even bought a couple of 'kit' boxes as presents containing everything you need (except perhaps eggs) to build a Lebkuchen gingerbread house - the ingredients, icing, and decorations. If you like Jaffa cakes, look out for the packets of cube-shaped 'Dominos'; if you can find them, they are delicious and worth stocking up on! other than that, I don't often visit Lidl. The choice is a bit too limited to do a full shop there, and I'd rather avoid trips to two separate supermarkets for one shop!

I was a bit wary of going to Lidl as my mum has always turned her nose up at it…read more But.... I went here recently and was pleasently surprised. It was actually ok! The fruit and veg is mostly if not all organic and the prices are very competitive! They also sell some of the most amazing own brand chocolate I have ever tasted. Believe me it gives Galaxy a run for its money! Another thing I like is that it is never overly busy. There are always spaces in the car park and even though the seem to have a couple of staff working they get you served in no time!

Reviewing Sainsbury's does seem a little silly when this is the only big one in Cardiff but I feel…read moreI need to draw special attention to its card section. I'm usually disappointed by the cards in supermarkets, although it's usually the place I am when I remember that I need to get one and it's too late to go anywhere else. This is the situation I found myself in today, and readied myself to buy a boring card that's the same as you see everywhere else and will probably be the same as another card on the mantelpiece of my friend whose birthday it was. In my previous visits to Sainsbury's (and I do go there a few times a week) I had noticed the card section at the front of the store and assumed that it was pretty small, but I was surprised to find that there was rather a large selection to choose from. And they weren't all just your standard Hallmark cards either; they had lines that I'd never seen anywhere else and were really lovely. As well as the birthday card I needed, I found loads of blank cards with gorgeous pictures that I bought just because I liked them, and I ended up spending around £8 in total, which I think is rather a lot to spend on cards. This was not because they were expensive either, with most standard size cards costing around £1.50. So next time you need to buy someone a card, do not underestimate Sainsbury's! (Oh, and on a slightly different subject, this Sainsbury's petrol station is also the only place I know of where you can pump your tyres up for free. Thank-you, Sainsbury's)

My favourite supermarket in Cardiff as at the moment I sadly can't quite afford to go to Waitrose…read moreon a regular basis. This Sainsburys supermarket is big, but is by no means as intimidating as Tesco Extra can be (if you go with friends you can very easily loose them in Tesco's). They have a great selection of food at all prices available, and I particularly like Indian and Chinese ready meal selection. They also have a fresh fish and meat, delicatessen, and bakery counters, all manned by really lovely staff. Finally I'd also recommend checking out their DVD selection as prices are rather cheap, I managed to buy New Moon the week it came for only £7.99 (so I can now swoon at Robert Pattison to my hearts content).

Costco is a wholesale retailer which you have to become a member of to shop at. Its about £20 for a…read morebusiness and then you add so member of the staff too. This places is just fantastic for parties. They sell loads more than food, but the selection of pre-prepared foods and nibbles is awesome. The fresh food selection is great too, plus they do fantastic cakes that they can personalise. They also sell electrical's, they have a photo centre and sell car stuff amongst other things. If your prepared to buy in bulk you can save a fair bit on the household bills.

This costco had no lines at checkout in the evening which is unheard of in the states. The store…read moreseems new and clean, staff is super friendly, and the food court selection is better than in the states!

It's so handy this branch. I was catching a train the other day from here (not the shop but from…read morethe platform) and with only 5 minutes to spare and my 7 month old son in my arms I just had enough time to rush in and grab something as long a the queue wasn't too big. There was a bt of a queue but the staff got through it in no time and before you know it I was on my train munching my triple decker sandwich and cheddar cheese and fancy onion crisps. Ok there are cheaper sandwich shops but they simply not as nice.

Oh, I was so incredibly happy when this place opened. And I still am. M&S Simply Food is enough…read morehappiness for a lifetime. Marks & Sparks stock only their own brand of food and drink. This could be a bad thing in terms of choice, but it's not. There's too much choice in the M&S range as it is already. I spend ages every time just staring at the selections of sandwiches and salads. Then another age choosing juice. This store is in an incredibly handy location for anyone who commutes in and out of Cardiff Central, as it's right there in the station. It's also great as a place to stop into before going to Vue Cinemas; here you can get healthy and yummy snacks instead of salty cardboard hot dogs. In short; the food here is fantastic, if not cheap. Great for a healthy snack or treat, not so great for stocking up on basic before you head home (although, maybe if you're on a better wage then me, you'd be alright).

Easy to pop into, with both self check and regular check out, with speed.read more

I'm probably a bit too keen with reviewing this store because when I was in there last week it…read morestill looked half like a building site! Recently a crop of supermarket mini stores have appeared on St Mary's Street. There was nothing and now there is Spar, Tesco and Sainsburys all no doubt trying to capture business from all the local workers. Well this branch seems a bit smaller than the one on Queens Street with less general items and more lunch/convenience stuff and one of their brilliant salad bars. I'm sure it'll do well, once it looks like a shop!

This is probably the best Tesco ever…read more If you thought the Tesco on Western Avenue was big, you should see this one. I think the actual food section is really only slightly bigger, but the clothing section upstairs is huge. If you like Tesco clothes, this is the best Tesco to visit. The Western Ave Tesco is having a bit of a makeover, and their clothes area certainly looks pretty fancy now, but they only occupy a small space. The clothes at Culverhouse Cross covers almost half of the second floor, and its nicely spread out so you can actually see the clothes on the hangers, rather than having to filter threw the rails for what's hidden at the back. This is also the best Tesco to go to for bargains. In the home section, you can pick up end of the line cups and plates for as little as 10p, and many other items are super cheap while you wont find them in other Tesco stores. I got all the things I needed for my new flat here for less than £1 for each item. I have never been so excited about Tesco as I was walking around this store.

The biggest Tesco I've ever been in, this one's even bigger than the newly-opened one in North…read moreBristol. The Bristol one used to be my local, so what's confusing about this one is that all the aisles are exactly the same- except it's left-to-right flipped. It's surprisingly confusing, especially if like me you tend to go into some kind of consumerist trance when you're supermarket shopping. I like Tesco supermarkets, particularly this one. Yes they're not the cheapest for everything but overall their prices work out very reasonably. They have a good range of stock on most food stuffs, they put the effort in in their larger supermarkets to stock more imported and exotic brands, and they sell decent ranges of things like electrical and clothing goods. Some of the electricals in particular are priced even cheaper than you'd find them online, which is a pleasant surprise. The cafe is useful as well. It sells plain but very cheap meals with no frills. I tend to eat here before doing the shopping rounds, because if I go round a supermarket while hungry, I buy far too much food. Decent parking, straightforward service, no problems.

Medina Food Store is one of several convenience stores competing for the local business in the…read moreimmediate area. It stocks all of the usual staples like milk, bread, confection and soft drinks, as well as a good selection of inexpensive spices alongside the pulses and grains. And of course, there are the usual jars and cans, as well as an unfeasibly large selection of dates! More quirky items, not often seen in this kind of store, include large bags of BBQ charcoal stacked by the door, and a row of glittering shisha pipes racked up on the top shelf closest to the counter. They used to sell Halal meat from the chilled counter at the back of the shop. Sadly, these days this is filled with Arabian-style cakes and confection, as it wasn't feasible to continue stocking it. With the main serving counter at the front of the store, and the chilled counter at the rear, it meant that two people had to be consistently present, which just wasn't economically viable. There was insufficient trade to make this option workable. They tried operating both counters with only one member of staff, but shop-lifting became such a big issue they have been forced to suspend meat sales until they can find a Halal butcher to take the counter over as a separate concession. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the theft of meat is pretty common. It's a high-cost item that people have found increasingly difficult to afford as the recession grinds on. All meat retailers are suffering the same problem across they board; supermarkets and independent stores alike. Peshwan, who was serving when I called in recently, told me that things are looking up. The owner is talking to a butcher at the moment, and so the issue looks like it maybe resolved quite soon.

This is a big and shiny (though no longer quite so new) Morrison's in the centre of the new…read moreharbourside development in Barry. Although it's surrounded by new housing, it's actually pretty central, and only a 10 minute walk from the centre of town. It's also served by several of Barry's local buses. Although a lot of people are disparaging about Morrison's, I quite like this store: it's clean, bright, and well-stocked, and with wide aisles. The quality of fruit and veg is fine (not quite up to Waitrose standards, but then you're paying less) and it's large enough to cope with the most demanding weekly shop. There's an in-store bakery, cake shop, butcher, fish counter and delicatessen, as well as a fresh salad and fresh pizza counter. The large cafe at one end of the store is fine, if you need some sustenance before or after your shop, and it seems popular with pensioners and the odd family doing just that. There's a very large car park, and a petrol station with very competitive prices and reasonable opening hours (NB it doesn't open until 7am, so if you have an early start, fill up the night before). Other facilities include a cashpoint, customer toilets and recycling centre.

Easy to get to, competative prices and helpful staff…read more The cafe isnt cracked up to much but the salad bar in the store is nice. Morrisons is great at trying to get that 'market feel' with a bakery, deli counter, fish counter and butchers. The petrol station can be a pain - the layout is terrible and if it's busy it's hard to get out of the car park. They have just re-furbished this and i havent seen if they've actually changed the layout - i hope so though!

There aren't many supermarkets I'd feel inclined to write reviews about but this one is a definite…read morefavorite for a few different reasons. 1. Its Cheap. It has cheap clothes, cheap DVD's and cheap food. There's not much I need that Asda doesn't sell really. 2. Its Quiet. I can't tell you that there won't be any queues at Christmas but pretty much everytime I go there I have a nice relaxing shopping experience which is mighty hard to come by these days. 3. It full of Singles!! I'm not one for trying to get a date over the fruit and veg aisle but I did appreciate going here back in my singleton days because I didn't feel like the only loner in the world and it made shopping that little bit more enjoyable.

I really do love this Asda, it's pretty much the only shop need. First of all everything is…read morecheap/reasonable and is of a good quality. This is also the best place to buy Blu Ray's from. Generally what supermarkets do is under sell their media products in order for you to spend more money on other things in the shop, great when you only go in there to buy the films then. And finally, it is the only place I've ever seen that sells this strawberry and lime cider, I'm not joking when I say I'm probably keeping that company afloat on my own with the amount I've bought.