Steak Pie

Top Pies 285 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Victoria

In the window of the shop, little party pies nestle cosily in a warmer. You are enticed in for a morsel, a snack, a hint of a pie. Whilst in the queue of men in dirty shorts and work boots, you decide to go the whole hog and have a regular sized pie.

Handed over in a white paper bag, it's big and high, but too big for me to bite open. Ack-ack! The pastry is thick, has crunch and pulling it apart reveals no gush of sauce, no sog factor, just solid filling. The anticipation leaves you salivating.

You eat a mouthful and like inhaling a packet of dry crackers, every last drop of moisture is evacuated from your mouth. This fatty tasting pie with its peppery seasoning is a mouth sponge. It could be used by dentists instead of that saliva vacuum they wedge into the corner of your mouth. Vrrrrruhh!

I lurched for a hot and milky cup of tea in order to raise the courage for another mouthful.

The filling of steak is so finely ground as to resemble Pecks Devilled Ham Paste and tastes similar. Add the 'Big Red' condiment - it takes the edge off the seasoning. I get half way through the gluey mass and give the rest to my cats. It could after all, be out of a can of Whiskas with a heavy dose of commercially ground pepper used for flavour.

This is a pie to be eaten when the tastebuds are deadened and you're so drunk that you're crawling along the pavement post F1 Grand Prix Celebrations - in a heatwave - where you thoroughly need to mop up before hitting the next pub. Only then is it a top pie.

scoreboard:
pastry: filling: - ease of eating:

Garlos Pies

Garlos Pies | 1145 Botany Rd, Mascot

Now a franchise, the team behind Garlos is pastry chef Nathan Garlick, and his brother Sean, a former captain of Rugby League’s underdog turned celebrity-owned working class team, Rabbitohs.

The Mascot shop, open 24 hours, is a stone’s throw from Sydney’s sea- and air- ports and the industry embedded around that, and deeply positioned in bunny territory.

English Andy spurs me on to review Garlos – he gives their steak and kidney pie kudos for an “aboondance” of kidney. In the shop, there’s a variety of pies, offerings of mash and mushy peas, with a uniformed lady behind the counter. I feel like I’ve stepped into a temporary tardus where northern England meets working class Australia.

I don’t notice the foil pie pan until I get back to the car and open the paper bag. I’m developing a theory about pies that come in foil pans…

The base is an anaemic looking short crust, not quite cooked, and predictably it splits under the weight of the filling when lifted out of the pan. The lid is golden, flaky puff pastry, and otherwise unremarkable.

The minced beef filling has a meat to gravy ratio is generously balanced on the meat side of the equation - but that’s the problem, we’re short on flavour. The “peppery goodness” factor isn’t there and the home cooked wholesomeness of onions and celery absent. Heck, it’s not even salty!

This is a mild mannered pie that pulls no punches; probably just the ticket at 3am en route t’port.

scoreboard:
pastry: filling: ease of eating:

Black Welsh Beef & Merlot Pie

Mt Bellevue 469 Bellavista Rd, Myrhee, Victoria.
Purchased at St.Kilda's Veg Out Farmers Market and Albert Park's Gasworks Park Farmers Market.

If I were personified as a pie, this would be it. From the cute pastry cut out of a cow on the lid, to the saucy interior, this is me. Underneath a flirtatious facade, it's all about what lies beneath the surface.

I eat this pie once a month. A slice of Slow Food at its most earnest, it comes from my favourite Welsh Australian Cattle Farmer, Winnie Jones of Mt Bellevue in the King Valley. Made with her delicious rare breed Welsh Black beef and Redbank Merlot - the grapes of which she also grows on her property - it is a credit to her spirit and passion.

I like to think that this is the kind of pie that I would bake for myself. But really, why should I when this marvel already exists, ready to take home, to be heated and savoured in private?

The shortcrust pastry is crisp and the top is flaky. It droops a little and there is a slurry of gravy made vaguely purple by wine. But it tastes delicious, full of honest ingredients supporting a particularly wonderful beef. Like any good stew it contains a mirepoix of celery, onion and carrot - vital to the flavour. Rounding out the show are a few peas, suspended in the red wine flavoured sauce made with beef stock and a touch of tomato.

Inside there is both ground and large chunks of beef. Utilising one of the oldest breeds of cattle, this filling is lean and a wake up call to how beef should taste: intense and rich in complexity, while melt in the mouth in texture. It is comfort food deluxe and like a gentle kiss from a loved one, it soothes the soul.

The pies are available from Winnie at the two Farmers Markets she attends in Melbourne. Try one and you will remember what good old fashioned beef is all about.

scoreboard:
pastry: filling: ease of eating:

Boscastle's Morroccan Lamb Pie

Available at Garden Street Cafe.

Crn Garden Street and Powder Works Road

North Narabeen, NSW

02 991312 33

Also available in Family size.

Greetings from muggy Sydney, all you lovers of pie perfection!! After a long morning of hanging out at Narrabeen beach, a quick trip to Buddah's Belly and a morning nanna nap, I had a pie jones of MONUMENTAL proportions. Thanks to the very lovely Marrianne at Garden Street Cafe, I hooked myself up with the above morsel. The pic doesn't do it justice... in fact it looks a bit like road kill. Sorry 'bout that.

Terry Creamean, Boscastle's founder, named the company after the town famous for Cornish pasties, where he apparently worked for some three years. On return to Aus, he founded Bostcastles in Melbourne.

I am led to believe that they aren't all that common here in Sydney, but are beginning to catch on.

The Moroccan Lamb pie. The crust was suitably short. Not quite as buttery as some, but for a mass produced pie it was very good. The top pastry was flakey and egg washed, the sesame seeds being more for show than for flavour.

The filling was lovely. The lamb had been pre-braised and was fall apart tender. This can be a real downfall of lamb in pies. If it's not pre-braised it can retain its "gamey" taste and stay tough. The gravy was gelatine-thickened, but in good proportion to the large chunks of meat. I clearly detected some cinnamon, some cumin and a hint of fig in the gravy. Noice.

The final addition of a few chick peas made for a nice suprise.

The also do a Certified Black Angus pie. Hmmmmmmmmm!!

Three stars on all fronts.

scoreboard:
pastry: filling: ease of eating: