Sainsbury’s

Located right next to Tesco express and marks and Spencer, Sainsbury is a good place to go for after work shopping or actually shopping any time of the day as it is open ²⁴⁄₇.
I went here on boxing day around 5.30pm and got myself some marked down ready made meals (how difficult is it to find an authentic Cornish pie in any of the pubs in London. They are all selling gourmet burgers, Mexican food or Japanese food).
Options for ready made meals include English pies (get the one with steak and ale), soups, curry chicken and rice, asian noodles and salads. I even found marked down crumbed sole fillets. Yum.
I searched and searched for some rye, sourdough, or ciabatta bread and came across nothing I liked. My options included thick wholemeal bread or rye bread.
May be I’m seriously spoilt in Australia and more so after enjoying delicious sourdough bread in la clusaz, that I can’t bring myself to eat anything sub par.
This place is seriously lacking baked goods options. What is the point of being open ²⁴⁄₇ if you don’t restock your aisles? Couldn’t even find eggs. No breakfast for me. :(
Did manage to get a bag of english royal gala apples — can’t wait to find out how different they are from Australian royal gala apples. :)
There are a few self check out counters and fewer check out counters with attendants.
You can stock up on meat, veggies and fruits here and of course frozen desserts.
Bags cost 5p a piece.

Possibly the only Sainsbury in these here parts offering ready to eat chicken, a highlight for my Wednesdays.
It’s always busy and seldom without needing to queue. Without competitors on the high street this is the only proper market adjacent to Waterloo station.

This is an extremely tiny little store. Customers have to rub against each other to move from isle to isle, and a little browsing will get you in someone’s way.
Also, the quality of food, especially the fruits aren’t the best. I bought a bundle of oranges that turned out to have completely molded on one side. I’ve also bought a jar of salsa that was apparently already opened. If you come here within an hour before closing, you will have to step over boxes messily strewn across the already limited floorspace, as the worker are restocking the shelves.
With that said, this market is in a convenient location and is open until like midnight.

Small and often sold out. The produce meat and fish sections in particular are small in selection and poor in supply.
There is little proper local competition, and so the queues get ridiculously long.
As with all sainsbury’s it’s not as cheap as tesco, but not far off. Much better value than m&s.

A good little Sainsbury’s with decent stock– they reduce stuff that’s going out of date and put it in the chiller section by the sandwiches towards the end of the day. I used to stop here on the way to visit my friend and the do a good selection of wines and sweet products– such as donuts, cupcakes etc. If you want a cheap lunch, their sandwiches are quite good too.

This is my medium range local supermarket. When I’m fed up with tesco bargains and can’t quite stress to an M&S supper I go here. It is a sainsburys «local» so it is small but goes really far back and is packet full of stock. they have a great range of Indian cooking ingredients so I often go for naan breads and nice sauces. They aren’t drastically more expensive than tesco for branded items, but their own brand isn’t as cheap as tesco’s.
What is amazing value here is the soft drinks. they usually have a deal on for buy one 6 pack of cokes get one free so thats 12 cans for £3 which is amazing. Also if you’re peckish at night they sell off all their sandwiches half price in the evenings. They are really good toasted if you can’t be bothered cooking dinner!

It is only a small Sainsbury’s but it’s definately an asset to the local area. It has about 12 counters and can be occupied by twelve people during the busiest hours. Their main business seems to be the lunch hour and between 17:00 and 19:00. There is a bus stop in front of the shop itself, meaning there is always a crowd to fight your way through. Their prices are a bit steeper than anywhere else due to their location but you can still bag the normal Sainsbury’s bargains advertised in the media. They’ve also got a small bakery inside which is quite popular with the people working in the area. During the peak hours, you could expect the queue to go around a few aisles but they do work quickly on getting those numbers down. The only thing that bugs me about this store is that it can get quite busy and let’s face it, who likes a queue?