You call that a pie? This is a pie. Jumbucks Pie review

Jumbucks - The Kiwi Pie Review

Yet again the Pierateers have gone 'down under', but by no means have lowered their standards, by visiting the Aussie pie makers, Jumbuck's, in Shepherds Bush. Jumbuck's are always worth another visit because they have so many unusual pie flavours to try and with new ones arriving regularly even the Pierateers struggle to keep up. This time I went for a pie called, somewhat controversially for an Aussie pie shop, 'The Kiwi' which was mince and cheese. To me this is emblematic of how the power of pies can really influence people. Here we have two countries, more often caught in rivalry, uniting in spirit to bring a bit of joy encased in pastry to West London. Jumbuck's make their pies in what they call 'Jaffle Irons', which means the pie is encased in a metal mould while being cooked and hence the pastry can't expand so much and is more gooey. This is rather like the pie maker previously reviewed. An upshot of this seems to be that they can get more filling into the pie without risk of it exploding, hence a great capacity. This seems like a good thing although my main bone with it is that the filling taking up this capacity is mostly liquid. Admittedly the gravy was delicious and thick but I felt like I was pretty much drinking this pie rather than eating it. Seriously I bet you could suck it up through a straw and just leave a hollow pastry case. In fact that sounds like a challenge for the Pierateers! Given that the pastry is also gooey, mastication is barely necessary for this pie giving my teeth a well needed break and making it high scoring on the Chewiness-o-meter.

At £2.50 this was slightly pricey for what is essentially a quite small pie. However, for me if I had more of this pie I think the cheesy flavour would have become too much although I enjoyed it in the quantities I had. This pie seemed to have some benefits over the 'Bushranger Deluxe' previously reviewed in that the content wasn't taken up by excessive quantities of mash potato. Jumbuck's have a knack of producing their consistently fab pastry and the condition seems to be great at any time of day. They are open until 1am on Friday and Saturday which gives them a massive plus in my book. As they are open at 7:30am during the week the deliciously unique 'Bacon and Egg' breakfast pie is also well worth a look.

The Kiwi - Meat & Cheese (Jumbucks)
5.06/7

SJL