A smashing pie at the Badminton in 2015?

Barclaycard Arena Chicken and Mushroom Pie Review

Some of you may remember that last British Pie Week Pierateer RAS was at the National Indoor Arena (NIA) in Birmingham to help with the Yonex All England Badminton Championships 2014, but also got a chance to rate the NIA Chicken and Leek Pie. While back in 2013, an NIA Apple Pie was on the menu and got rated on the 7 Cs of pie rating. And with scores of 4.43/7 and 4.2/7 respectively, they both got a decent score but there were a few service faults and certainly room for improvement.

Barclaycard Arena Chicken and Mushroom Pie Review

Back again this year at the badminton - though since last year the NIA has been rebranded the "Barclaycard Arena" - I was please to once again see they had pie on the menu and we have rated the Chicken and Mushroom pie. As you can see from the photo, this is just a top crust pie, made from individual "puff pastry parcels". At www.pierate.co.uk we are quite pie purists, so we would prefer to see a pie fully encased in pastry and a puff pastry parcel lid will lower the score in condition and capacity, however it was good to see the top pastry was quite golden. This top pastry layer was quite tasty and crisp, though there were definite murmurings of a lack of pastry encasement by fellow pie eaters. Without a pie casing, the filling just spilled all over the plate and so the condition wasn’t great and the consistency was rather runny.

The filling spread all over the plate and it was great to have a decent amount of chicken, which was tender and quite flavoursome in the sauce provided. However it is very difficult to judge the capacity with such a lack of pastry structure to support the pie. There was a bit of mushroom in it to bulk out the pie filling, which was quite firm, but it was certainly mainly chicken. At £7.50 for the pie meal, this isn’t really a price I’d be making a racquet over.

While the Barclaycard Arena canteen staff have once again done well to show their support to British pie for all the international guests at the badminton in British Pie Week (as they did in 2011, 2013 and 2014), I would like to have seen them encase the pie in pastry. However, all in all, it was quite a nice top-crust pie meal without challenging for the top seeding.

National Indoor Arena Chicken and Mushroom Pie
Score: 3.79/7
[Colour 4, Capacity 4, Consistency 3, Condition 3, Chewiness 6, Cheapness 2, Content 4.5, Total: 3.79/7]
RAS