ALDI & LIDL Food and Drink Worth Trying?

[andburg]

fed up of spending £25 a week on lunch at work I picked up some of the frozen steampot meals for £1.39 each.

so far done the chicken in a tandoori sauce and the smoked salmon pasta both lovely, cant believe they are so cheap!

[PH5121]

I like their tomato and basil soup, good value at 40p or 50p a tin too.

[Mobile Chicane]

V8mate said:

RammyMP said:

21TonyK said:

Have you tried the Argentinian Malbec? For £6 its a hit for me.

I agree, it is a victim of its own success as it was only £4.50 in my local when they started selling it.

Yeah, we've tried that one. It was ok, but not outstanding.

(I realise that wine preferences are super personal!)

I personally think the best cheapie red out there (and believe me I have tried them all) is 'Quirky Bird' SA Shiraz / Mourvedre / Viogner. £5.25 - £4.75 from Tesco.

[NormalWisdom]

Mobile Chicane said:

I personally think the best cheapie red out there (and believe me I have tried them all) is 'Quirky Bird' SA Shiraz / Mourvedre / Viogner. £5.25 - £4.75 from Tesco.

Can't disagree with that, a "go-to" quaffer of ours for almost a year now.

[V8mate]

Thanks for the recommendation, MC!

[Gretchen]

Might try that this weekend. I found the Malbec I'd tried. It was Hereford Angentinian from the Co-Op. It was on sale for around £5 I think and I had 20% discount on top of that.

Not Lidl or Aldi but picked up a Sweet Chilli Noodle Pot from B&M during my work break for 39p (or 3 for £1) it wasn't bad. Quick and easy, just add boiling water, and didn't taste like cardboard. Great to carry in a bag or keep in a desk. Same price as the Porridge in a pot too.

God I know how to live.

[FiF]

Visited a B&M the other day for the first time. Prices are interesting, but you really do have to watch the pack sizes! The old story, need to know market prices, not just pack but per kg.

[Truckosaurus]

FiF said:

Visited a B&M the other day for the first time.....

I was excited to visit B&M last week for the first time in about 30 years. My late grandmother used to live in Kirkham, Lancs which was home to one of two branches of B&M Bargains (the other being in Blackpool).

In those pre-PoundShop days it was a treasure trove to a young child and we'd save up our pocket money for the half term trips Up North to spend on random discounted tat.

On my visit last week I purchased a Ginsters Pasty and a 'Baby Ruth' from the American Candy section for my lunch.

[battered]

Gretchen said:

Might try that this weekend. I found the Malbec I'd tried. It was Hereford Angentinian from the Co-Op. It was on sale for around £5 I think and I had 20% discount on top of that.

Not Lidl or Aldi but picked up a Sweet Chilli Noodle Pot from B&M during my work break for 39p (or 3 for £1) it wasn't bad. Quick and easy, just add boiling water, and didn't taste like cardboard. Great to carry in a bag or keep in a desk. Same price as the Porridge in a pot too.

God I know how to live.

Eeeh, living the dream. Instant noodles. I keep the Aldi ones at home for emergencies. As in "I've just walked in after 5 hours in the car and I want to eat something NOW!" emergencies. That and mountaineering trips, when they are a lifesaver. Quick, easy, tart them up with some cheese or a tin of sardines, and you'll make it through until morning at least. Instant custard and a Jamaica Ginger cake turns it into a meal for the gods. Well, gods who aren't near a pub or take away, anyway.

[dazco]

battered said:

Eeeh, living the dream. Instant noodles. I keep the Aldi ones at home for emergencies. As in "I've just walked in after 5 hours in the car and I want to eat something NOW!" emergencies. That and mountaineering trips, when they are a lifesaver. Quick, easy, tart them up with some cheese or a tin of sardines, and you'll make it through until morning at least. Instant custard and a Jamaica Ginger cake turns it into a meal for the gods. Well, gods who aren't near a pub or take away, anyway.

I was permanent staff at a small British Army detachment in Kenya and we used to get a few adventurous types coming through doing various adventure type stuff, we would give them support and they would stay a few days with us to get acclimatised. Nairobi is very high.

A team of mountaineering chaps came through and decided to take lots of instant noodles up Mount Kenya as sustenance. This turned out to be a very bad idea, the water was boiling at a ridiculously low temperature and the noodles were not very nice at all.

On a sadder note, the next team that came to climb Mt Kenya lost a man when he tied his rope (and I assume his backup rope) round a massive outcrop and the whole lot came away.

[battered]

dazco said:

On a sadder note, the next team that came to climb Mt Kenya lost a man when he tied his rope (and I assume his backup rope) round a massive outcrop and the whole lot came away.

Ook. That's not nice. TBH there is no backup rope when you are climbing, unless you count climbing on a pair of lighter ropes. Nor is there when abseiling, which is the most likely point of failure. If your anchor fails, you are going down. The best practice is to put in multiple anchors and to abseil on at least 2 anchors, more if they are sketchy. Climbers carry spare slings that may be left behind if necessary. Anyone who's been around for a bit has some old gear that they don't mind abandoning as a sacrificial sling. None of this helps if the whole chunk of rock comes away, and I've been in the Alps and other ranges where the whole structure is wobbly. You recover your rope when descending by abseiling on a doubled rope and then pulling it through from one end, leaving the sling behind.

The only one of my climbing mates who has been killed climbing was abseiling when his anchor (or I think a mistied knot) failed. The other untimely deaths have involved cars and motorcycles, which says a lot about what people perceive to be a dangerous activity.

[madbadger]

dazco said:

A team of mountaineering chaps came through and decided to take lots of instant noodles up Mount Kenya as sustenance. This turned out to be a very bad idea, the water was boiling at a ridiculously low temperature and the noodles were not very nice at all.

I cooked noodles on Kilimanjaro and they were fine!

Here is the science bit:

Summit of Mt Kenya is 17 057ft. Water boils at lower pressure due to the altitude at ~2deg C per 2000ft. 17000 it will boil at 82deg but I doubt they did much of the cooking on the summit.

Perfectly possible to cook noodles at 80deg so I suspect they must have been a dodgy batch rather than it being the altitude.

/pedant

[Pothole]

battered said:

Eeeh, living the dream. Instant noodles. I keep the Aldi ones at home for emergencies. As in "I've just walked in after 5 hours in the car and I want to eat something NOW!" emergencies. That and mountaineering trips, when they are a lifesaver. Quick, easy, tart them up with some cheese or a tin of sardines, and you'll make it through until morning at least. Instant custard and a Jamaica Ginger cake turns it into a meal for the gods. Well, gods who aren't near a pub or take away, anyway.

Vile. Roast FTW

[dazco]

madbadger said:

dazco said:

A team of mountaineering chaps came through and decided to take lots of instant noodles up Mount Kenya as sustenance. This turned out to be a very bad idea, the water was boiling at a ridiculously low temperature and the noodles were not very nice at all.

I cooked noodles on Kilimanjaro and they were fine!

Here is the science bit:

Summit of Mt Kenya is 17 057ft. Water boils at lower pressure due to the altitude at ~2deg C per 2000ft. 17000 it will boil at 82deg but I doubt they did much of the cooking on the summit.

Perfectly possible to cook noodles at 80deg so I suspect they must have been a dodgy batch rather than it being the altitude.

/pedant

Just saying what they told me, no reason to believe they lied

[Gretchen]

Pothole said:

Vile. Roast FTW

I'm in work for over 10 hours a day. Add to that travelling time. If I could whip up a roast I would. As it is two minute noodle
pots or mug shots suffice. They're low in fat, filling and easy to eat at my desk. A roast however, is not. Not comparable.

[battered]

Pothole said:

battered said:

Eeeh, living the dream. Instant noodles. I keep the Aldi ones at home for emergencies. As in "I've just walked in after 5 hours in the car and I want to eat something NOW!" emergencies. That and mountaineering trips, when they are a lifesaver. Quick, easy, tart them up with some cheese or a tin of sardines, and you'll make it through until morning at least. Instant custard and a Jamaica Ginger cake turns it into a meal for the gods. Well, gods who aren't near a pub or take away, anyway.

Vile. Roast FTW

Well, tried that on a Scottish winter trip, the Sherpas did well carrying up the beef sirloin and the advance party got the Primus stove fired up OK, damn me if the bally QM didn't drop the horseradish somewhere an route, so we were back on the noodles. Bloody fool, we made him sleep outside the bothy as a penance. Froze to death of course, found him solid and stiff between two snow covered peat groughs the next morning. Serves him right, can't be expecting us to have beef without horseradish. We're not bloody foreigners. So since then it's been noodles all the way. Bloody awful things but it saves all that nonsense with the Coroner.

[rich85uk]

Fancied something quick and easy after football training and decided to try the Aldi specially selected spicy italian schiacciata salami pizza. For a supermarket pizza it was fantastic and packed with all the meat and cheese toppings

Good value at £3, Tesco and Waitrose charge nearly double that for a similar Italian pizza and both are smaller!

[V8mate]

rich85uk said:

Fancied something quick and easy after football training and decided to try the Aldi specially selected spicy italian schiacciata salami pizza. For a supermarket pizza it was fantastic and packed with all the meat and cheese toppings

Good value at £3, Tesco and Waitrose charge nearly double that for a similar Italian pizza and both are smaller!

They really are superb pizzas. What sets them apart is the lovely sourdough base.

I used to chuck a tray of their 'pulled' piri piri chicken over the ham and mushroom variant. Super protein nommy

They seem to have stopped their 'pulled' range of cold meats now though

[NoVetec]

Aldi Mac & Cheese, out of the tin, nuked with chopped up Bockwurst and some black pepper. Lovely.

Their Lemon Posset is good too, £1.19 IIRC in a re-usable ramekin.

[TheD]

Anyone tried Aldis 21 day old sirloin?