Akdeniz Food Market

This corner shop is a food market, butchers and bakery all rolled into one. Nothing beats fresh-​out-​of-​the-​oven croissants on a Sunday morning.
1 — Fresh Fruit and Veg
You need t be vigilant here to ensure the items are fresh. You don’t want to be caught out when you get home to find wrinkly tomatoes or ‘old’ grapefruits.
Item of choice: Huge bunches of fresh herbs (parsley, coriander…) for 80p or 2 for £1 are a complete bargain.
2 — Groceries
You’ll find a huge selection of pasta, flours, spices and tinned goods. You’ll find most things here that you’d find in Tesco, including fresh dairy products.
Items of choice: Milk, hummous, halloumi and sujuk (garlic sausages — so unhealthy but so tasty!)
3 — Butchers
Halal meat only and you’ll find an interesting selection of cuts. I was horrified to see a de-​skinned sheep’s head, complete with bulging eyeballs, wrapped in a clear plastic bag.
I don’t tend to buy meat from here. The sheep heads put me off. I have had packets of chicken thighs before and they were fresh. I prefer Al Bahia over on Blackstock Road — meat is more fresh and you can place orders in advance.
4 — Bakery
When a fresh batch of goodies come out of the oven, the fresh bread smells are wafted throughout the shop — amazing. They sell freshly baked Turkish bread (50p and it measures around 8×20 inches), loaves, buns, wraps (tortilla, chapatis) baklava, pastries, biscuits and cakes.
Item of choice: Fresh croissants (3 for £1).
Checkout girls are efficient and friendly, although they seem bored most of the time. They rarely issue receipts so I have no idea if I’ve ever been incorrectly charged. The male staff are always friendly and always offer to help.

This used to be ma favourite local corner shop. The owners were very polite and very much a part of the community. Since the new ones got it about a year ago, I prefer to inconvenience myself go further. I don’t think I have ever been to a store, where EVERYTIME something goes wrong: a rotten/​gone off fruit hidden at the bottom of the punnet, cashier punches in different prices for at least one product (now, this is definitely every time), when confronted — does not apologise and is very rude. Yes, they do have a vast choice of products, and especially nice Turkish bakery, but the constant rip-​offs and the attitude they hold (especially, when they find out you’re paying by card) are unbelievable. By the way, do not expect a receipt — for many reasons, I think. So that you could not work out where you got ripped-​off and for the tax-​hiding purposes.