Lidl by Lidl

Sidmouth's Lidl store

The shot above is probably everyone's idea of a Lidl store - or Aldi, or Netto, or any of the growing number of cheap supermarket stores in the UK. A mess, full of badly-dressed old and poor people - a bit drab and vaguely East Germany as was.

So naff is the brand's image for most people, the gay comedian Alan Carr did a routine last year in which he compared Job Centres to 'Lidl just after it's been bombed'.

But things are changing: the discounters have over a quarter of the market between them now, and the world is beset by financial problems. Cheap chique's time may have come. A fortnight ago (Mediocrity) nby reviewed The Money Programme's look at the sector, in which the show made a pitch (albeit badly done) for the idea that the Lidls of our country are no longer just full of cheap second-best rubbish: now there are real bargains to be had. Lobster thermidor for six quid, even. So we bowled over to our nearest store at Sidmouth. And although there was no sign of Lobster (thermidor or otherwise) it was an interesting trip.

There are three surprising things about Lidl right off the bat. The first is that although the majority of clientele range from ghastly to gaga, there are plenty of middle class accents and good clothes in there as well. Yes, the very poor shop there: but so do the shrewd. The second is that, although as expected many of the brands are from places where you wouldn't choose to take a holiday (or indeed, get a visa very easily) there are a reasonable number of top brands in there too. And finally, it can actually be fun shopping at Lidl.

The fun comes chiefly from two things: discovery and exotica. I can easily understand how the voyage of discovery could become a perpetual unlucky dip of constantly changing stock if you shopped there all the time. Like all the real European discounters, Lidl buy cheaply from wherever they can: one week that'll be the Ukraine, the next Umbria. But if you wanted to drop in occasionally looking for astonishingly cheap and cosmopolitan ingredients, then these places would be a boon.

The downside of this of course is that these store groups buy on price rather than quality: there aren't any little Gnomes rushing about the continent looking for the finest Italian mushrooms and the firmest Spanish plum tomatoes. But if some of the time things will disappoint, with a lot of stuff it's hard to go wrong: tinned Italian tomatoes, Polish bottled veg and Scandinavian fish relishes are the best in the world anyway. As with everything, the trick is not to get too greedy: if something's idiotically cheap, the chances are it'll be awful.

Items that stood out for me included frozen sea bass at £6.99 for five fish, ducklings for £5.99 and organic fresh medium-sized chickens for under a fiver. And one or two of the booze bargains (see right) were remarkable. Nothing I've used so far has been unacceptable, and most of it is - well, to be honest, just as good as Tesco. Not the beloved Waitrose, of course - but that would be impossible.

There's just the one not very nice thing about Lidl - setting aside the high incidence of social workers dragging their confused clients round the store. The first is the ambience: this is set just above Slash My Wrists Please, I Want to Die. Forcibly loyal Lidl customers don't have a lot to be cheerful about as it is - it's harder to find someone laughing in one of these stores than it is to stumble upon a gefillte fish hypermarket in Teheran - but there's a problem with the light, and as I know a bit about this sort of stuff, I can tell Die Lidle Manner that it wouldn't break the bank to fix it.

I'll go again, for sure - if only for a browse, and to pick up the one or two serious megabrand offers. Mrs W left the visit with the air of somebody escaping from the Camp on Blood Island, but that's just her way: she's posh. And anyway, it didn't stop her buying twenty-four tubes of Macleans at below half-price.

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CHEAP BOOZE REVIEW

Booze can be a hit-and-miss business pretty much wherever you shop, and the obscurity of some of Lidl's brands didn't help. But there were a couple of real finds.

Thinking about it retrospect, Lidl being German an' all, I should've used my common sense and stuck with German booze.

Thus the 2007 Aussie South Eastern Shiraz Red at £3.95 was almost undrinkable: over-tannin, sour and thin.

But the German Perlenbacher Pils was terrific. Almost the perfect strength at 4.9%, it was being knocked out at £5.95 for a six-pack of half-litre bottles. OK, two quid a litre isn't rock-bottom for Pils - but this isn't any old Pils. A very, very nice drink for those who drink proper European beer for the taste as much as the effect.

The mega-discovery was a new one on me in every respect: a lightish German red made from the Dornfelder grape. There's a sweet version at 9% which websites say is fantastic chilled for summer drinking; but at Lidl the medium version at 12% is on sale at £3.99. It is sensational.