I Love Grapevine. The fruit and vegetables are always so fresh and delicious. It's really quite a…read morelarge shop and sells more than the average fruit shop; there's a small range of cooking extras: sauces, oils and dressings, herbs, and fresh eggs, and a fantastic indoor and outdoor plant section, with cut flowers and bedding plants all available. There's always great offers on the fruit, Tuesday I bought a big strawberries for £1 and they were just divine! Great place, but it's a long way to walk back to the train station (or the car park) with heavy purchases.. I don't think home delivery is available.

Best when the weather is good, the Liverpool Farmer's Market can provide new surprises as well as…read morefamiliar faces and products with each 3rd Sunday of every month. While most of us are trying to get a well earned lie in or nurse a hang over there are many out there setting up stalls to sell their wares and even more getting out there to sample the fresh produce of fruit, meat and cheese sellers and hand crafted materials and jewellery. When the weather is good or the 'farmers' know there will be more tourists out on the street there seems a better turn out and the market is the best way to sample some of the areas best local goods.

You want local and fresh? You want independent and cheap? You want it delivered to you're home or…read moreoffice? Well by golly, it's a good job Adam's Apple is around. There are crates and crates of every kind of fruit and veg you can think of; the cherries looked particularily yummy today! And they had flat mushrooms on offer so I had to indulge...(mushrooms may be fungus but they taste darn good!) I always feel good about myself when I buy from places like this, it's very friendly and chatty in here, busy when I went in, rustic in character and a damn sight better than the big Tesco up the road!

Adam's Apple is a great local fruit and veg shop. There is nothing that I like better than a shop…read morebrimming full with fresh fruit and veg and english flags flying! Bananas, pineapples, cherries, apricots, peaches, apples, pears, oranges, broad beans, onions, tomatoes, lettuce. I could go on and on. They also have some beautiful plants on sale including pansies. Adam's Apples offer a really good service and if you can't get to the shop because you are too busy or don't live nearby - it's ok! They offer office and home delivery! Cool!

Deli Fonseca is one of the few places that makes me wish I was loaded…read more A fab independent deli in Liverpool's business district, it's packed floor to ceiling with all kinds of mouthwatering goodies. The gigantic counter displays a myriad of delicious cheeses, hams, olives, pates, anti-pasti and salads whilst the nearby baskets display fresh sticks and loaves of bread. To top it off, they have dozens of wooden shelves groaning with all kinds of lovely store cupboard treats from organic granola, cereals and cookies to oat cakes, chutneys, olive oils, vinegars, sauces and spices. Now, where did I put that darn lottery ticket?

This review is for the upstairs restaurant area - and sadly it is not a good one. One Saturday…read morelunchtime, I popped in for a light lunch. Nothing complicated - in the end, I ordered a Greek salad and a plate of Serrano ham rather than the pricier mains on the blackboards. I'm not sure how two really basic things could be so disappointing. I think it's because on the surface, this looks like a place that prides itself on sourcing and attention to detail. On the specials during my visit were such items as hand foraged local samphire, Cumbrian lamb and Pink's award winning sausages. So why was the Greek salad about 50% raw onion? Why did it feature those mealy crunchy supermarket basics tomatoes, cold from the fridge? Even the black olives mentioned on the menu were green. And they clearly did have black olives in the kitchen, because my four slices of Serrano ham (almost £6) came topped with a single olive. They boasted it was "20 month aged" - most of it had clearly been in their fridge, as it featured a faint tang of refrigerator and managed to be unpleasantly rubbery. Not sure how Serrano ham can even go rubbery but there you go. If you've boasting of excellent ingredients then it's unacceptable for the basics to fail so badly. I wouldn't bother returning.

Fruit exchange is a massive fruit and veg stall inside Birkenhead Market. They offer one of the…read morelargest ranges of fruit and vegetables you will find in an independent shop, and they have some really good prices. They can certainly give Aldi a run for their money, so if you're into saving money on your food, this is a great place to buy your fruit and veg, especially those items that tend to be more expensive like strawberries and grapes. And there's just so much to choose from.

Matta's is an Indian grocery store which has successfully diversified into both regional world…read morefoods and also wholefoods. I'm impressed at the way Matta's has bridged the divide between different retail formats which otherwise seem to exist in parallel universes! For example, I've never seen any of the King Soba range of (organic) noodles in a Chinese supermarket, but Matta's has them. For a shop of fairly modest size, Matta's is fairly stepping up to the plate. Their new website allows you to buy online, and shop by category or by country http://www.mattas.co.uk/ Afro-Caribbean, Chinese, Greek, Indian, Italian, Japanese and Thai are all well catered for. There is a definite feel of confidence and genuine foodie enthusiasm in the buying and also in the customer service from at least some of the staff. I tend to shop in Mattas as a double whammy with the Bold Street Fruit & Veg Market further up the hill which is the only place I've seen globe artichoke this year and they also have great seasonal multibuy and bulk deals such as 2kg boxes of cherries for £5. Back to Matta's, if you are new to this type of store, start with some fresh herbs. Mint, cilantro and flat parsley are all under £1 for a huge bunch - use them more liberally in your cooking and enjoy some fresh mint tea while you are at it. The exotic veg display is always nice and fresh - okra, karela, drumstick - google, wikipedia and especially the bearded guy in Matta's are your friend. All the spices you could want are there, including some rarer ones such as szechuan peppercorn. At the checkout, look for the mangoes at £5.99 for a box of six Alphonso (April-June) or Honey (late June-October) mangoes, both varieties being name-checked by celebrity chefs. All-in-all, a fantastic foodie destination easily accessible to all due to the prime Bold Street location, right by Liverpool Central rail station.

Matta's is an excellent Asian store selling a huge variety of ingredients and exotic foods as well…read moreas frozen fish. There is no other store like this in Liverpool as here you'll find rarer products that you can experiment with. It is particularly popular with students and people from foreign backgrounds. Some westerners may consider the food strange so don't be suprised. There is alot of delightful produce to be tried at affordable prices. If you want to cook up something new whether it is middle-eastern or Carribean cuisine, come here because staff are friendly and will kindly advise you.

Holland and Barrett is a great little shop for the health conscious or the occasionally health…read moreconscious. They sell a myriad of supplements, from multi vitamins and herbal remedies, to dried fruit and nuts, healthy drinks and bulking protein supplements for gym lovers! Although this shop is a little pricey and you can probably find a lot of their shop cheaper online, it is very conveniently located in the centre of town, and sometimes has some great 2 for 1 offers on all supplements and multivitamins. They are very helpful inside the shop and they know their products inside out. I would fully recommend this shop for all the alternative remedies that they sell and for the expert advice that they offer to all their customers! It's definitely worth popping in just to get some multivitamins and Echinacea to ward off the colds and flu that float around the city!

Holland and Barrett is one of the best health shops around. I'm not often a health freak so I don't…read morebuy supplements for muscles or vitamins for instance. However, for those of you who do, this is the place to buy them. The reason I might go here, is to buy cereal bars as I much prefer these over full fat chocolate bars which I find too sweet. This form of health food is the tasty option filled with oat flakes, fruits and nuts! There is much more variety of healthy options than you can find in your local supermarket at prices which sometimes be a little pricey but you can't really argue for a shop of this speciality and with staff who are always willing to help you.

What a glorious location for a fantabulous farmers market. And this market has it all, from the…read morecoffee stall to the veg stall to the flower stall to the meat stall and beyond. There's something for everyone on the second Saturday of every month in this village, which, I'm told, dates back to the Doomsday Book. There's a stall selling great meat, for sure. But better than that there's someone with a griddle cooking sumptuous and sizeable lamb sausages and burgers from the same stall. Cooking them perfectly, and putting them with onions, relish or blue cheese sauce if you so desire. Not a fan, then try the hog roast. If you can get past the full pig on a stick, it's delectable, especially with apple sauce. For vegetarians there's a smaller savoury selection, olives, but a great choice of desserts from the Pudding Compartment to the few bakery stalls. The Woolton in Bloom stall raises money for those wonderful ladies who make this archetypal village look so good, hanging baskets and flowers adorning almost every wall and lamppost. If there is a problem with the market it's that it rarely changes. On the odd occasion the crepe man turns up, though, it's a real treat.