Greensmiths, Lower Marsh

The Bitter: Cold (still less than 2 degrees Celsius outside and the UK continues to not cope very well)

The Sweet: Discovering the great little café at my new favourite shop, an independent supermarket made up of local food retailers - an idea I wish I'd put into practice!

Monday, 11 January 2010

7. The good, the bad, the café and the cold

Greensmiths on Lower Marsh is fast becoming my most favoured shop, ever. I think they already know me in there now, so numerous have my after-work trips been. The greengrocer guy definitely recognises me and his eyes light up, because I have often fawned over the endive or asked about where their samphire comes from. The staff are extremely friendly and clued- up about their produce, to the point that they can explain how to cook something or what other foods it would pair well with. And there's little pretension - it's all quite straightforward supermarket shopping, except there aren't ever any queues, the food is locally sourced where possible, there's a sweet café upstairs, and - fundamentally - the people at the tills aren't dead-eyed and devoid of any charm, or pushing reward card points like smack.

Tonight I went with my friend Dany to see if we could get some food there after work, before heading down to Scooterworks (see my previous post here extolling the virtues of this other Lower Marsh gem) for their regular Monday night film at 8pm. Sadly the café, although replete with people, was no longer serving food (they do excellent-looking breakfasts until 11am, and then serve lunches from 12-4, I think). So we went to Sino Thai down the street instead, where we had some fairly standard chicken with cashew nuts and some sweet and sour prawns with coconut rice. It was average food, but came with friendly service and was inexpensive. I felt sorry for the man in the restaurant as we were his only customers and it was a bitterly cold evening with little chance of him encountering anyone else.

Poor Sino Thai dude.

So next time you're on Lower Marsh before 4pm check out the Greensmiths café and let me know what you think. Their cakes looked mighty good and I'd love to know what one of their bacon sandwiches would be like. Pigs have died for less noble reasons, y'know.