What are the cheapest and most expensive pies at football clubs? After all, cheapness is one Pierate's Seven Cs when assessing for the best pie in the world.

What else would you do at half time?!! I think it pretty much explains itself... http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19981001

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There is nothing that quite warms the heart,
Like that particular pastry work of art,
It's that special pie geometry,
That adds an extra appeal for me,
A Pierateer must be precise,
You can't make the mistake of getting a slice,
Don't even try because I'll never agree,
To consider ranking a Cornish pasty,

The only problem is that I can't stop,
Eating pie and mash with gravy on top,
I always say 'I'll have some more',
Even when I've eaten three or four,
For a pie addict it's not a bad suggestion,
To have something on hand for indigestion,
I've had so much of sailing the seven C's,
That I'm in danger or cardiovascular disease,

At my growing waist I can only watch,
As I have to open my belt another notch,
I look around and see it in their eyes,
They think 'it was you who ate all the pies!'
Trust me don't jump to volunteer,
To live the life of a Pierateer,
But at the end of the day it's all worthwhile,
As a meal pie is extremely versatile,
So I'll never give up, I find it fulfilling,
To live a life of pastry, gravy and filling

www.pierate.co.uk

SJL

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Score: 3.95/7

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Tesco Everyday Value Chicken & Vegetable pie review

After having tried the Tesco Everyday Value Beef and Onion pie and survived I decided to delve even deeper into the murky depths of cheap pies by getting a whole box of 4 Tesco Everyday Value Chicken and Vegetable frozen pies for a quid. The first thing I noticed was that these pies were pretty tiny which partly explained the cheapness. Once cooked however they did look fairly good with the classic shortcrust base and puff pastry lid combination.


It will be of no surprise that once I had cut into the pie no gravy or filling of any description came oozing out. I decided to cut the pie in half to have a closer look. I then separated the contents of the pie from the pastry as can be seen in the photos. It was a pretty poor showing, they didn't even fill it with the cheaper stuff like vegetables, the four peas and tiny pieces of carrot did little to hide the lack of chicken. I thought the filling could fit into a pie about a quarter of the size. Looking at the ingredients this wasn't surprising, it lists chicken breast as 10% and vegetables as 5%. To put this in context most pies we review are at least 50% filling. Everything was coated in gravy but the liquid content of the pie was pretty poor too. With other cheap pies you might expect too much gravy if anything to hide the lack of content, this pie didn't even bother.


But despite all this, as with the beef and onion version, the pie didn't actually taste bad. It was certainly edible which is more than can be said for some of the pies we have reviewed. The pastry was overly crunchy but the smear of gravy on it gave some flavour.

However, you would still, given a choice, not buy these pies. It is not like they are nutritious. They contain barely any protein and 28% of an adults daily saturated fat. I imagine they would actually often be eaten by children and I dread to think how bad it is for them. I can't help feel that people who end up feeling they have to buy these have been let down by society somehow. Maybe that is an idea. A charity to help those who are eating these pies.  Pies for the Poor; bring them a selection of pies from the Top 10 as recommended by the Pierateers! This will be our first policy as soon as the Pierateers form a political party. Given the lack of popularity of any party in the UK currently I think we might just get elected....

Chicken & Vegetable (Tesco Everyday Value)
2.24/7

SJL

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Tesco Pie Review - Everyday Value Beef and Onion

I had mixed feelings when I learnt of the demise of the Tesco Value brand. Of course it was low quality but I could remember those days at university when they helped me save a fair few pennies. I learnt to never buy the tooth breaking muesli unless I wanted to eat a mixture of stones and sawdust but there were some products I was willing to buy. At least you knew what to expect and the brand became fairly iconic with other supermarkets bringing out similar brands after the introduction of Tesco Value in 1993. There were even Tesco Value birthday cards for when it really is the thought that counts.

So, Tesco Value has been replaced with Tesco Everyday Value, a new much more appealing branding. Tesco also promise that they have improved many of the 550 products in the range. For example, the apple sauce is now to contain 33% more apple! To give our pie reviews some balance I thought this would be a good time to see how the cheapest pies stacked up against their much more pricey rivals. After all they would undoubtably score highly on cheapness.



Tesco Everyday Value Beef and Onion Pie

Inside the Tesco Everyday Value Beef and Onion Pie

I opted for a pack of three Beef and Onion pies for £1 which makes these some of the cheapest pies I have ever eaten. As you can see from the picture, they didn't look too bad, the condition was good. As soon as my knife cut the pie open however I thought these might be some trick 'air' pies like the pound shop versions we reviewed before. The filling wasn't immediately apparent, there wasn't a lot, as would be expected from these cheap pies. Taking a bite, I can safely say this wasn't the worst pie I'd ever tasted. In fact it didn't actually taste bad. The pastry was okay, it had a satisfying crunch to it. The meat in the filling was ground up so finely you couldn't actually tell that it was snouts and entrails and there was no need to chew. I saw a couple of tiny pieces of onion floating around too. Certainly this pie was below average but it was not quite as bad as I was expecting.

Tesco Everyday Value Beef and Onion Pie
Score: 2.45/7
SJL

P.S. This is our first ever post in September, strange how these things go isn't it?

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Sweeney and Todd - Vicar's Pie Review

In the pie reviewing business you always have to be on the look out for where the best pies can be found. There are just too many pies out there to review them all, no matter how hard we try. This can involve reading about pies, attending gourmet pie shows but most important of all, following up recommendations (see 'Suggest A Pie').

Sweeney and Todd Pie Counter

This leads me on to a place in Reading which I have had recommended to me by a few people. The fact that it has such a formidable reputation gave me high hopes for something special. The place in question is called Sweeney and Todd and what a brave name that is to give a pie establishment. It is take away or eat in with some roasts and casseroles available but the main focus is always on pies. My first impression was... where is it? The outside of the establishment was fairly nondescript. In fact it looks pretty run down and quite unappealing. Despite this there was a queue out the door, which hinted there must be something pretty good inside. Too many of the modern pie shops which have sprung up recently look fantastic but do nothing special with their pies. Sweeney and Todd certainly do something special to their pies (but hopefully not that...). Once I got into the shop and surveyed the magnificent selection I could tell they had a special cooking method. These seem to be pies cooked inside a pie mould, which stops the pies drying out and gives the pastry a fantastically gooey texture.

I opted for a Vicar's Pie. Vicars is the name of the butcher's in Reading which provides the meat for the pies. I deduced that the pie contained lamb, pork, carrot, potato, leek, mint and potentially some other ingredients as well. The combination was a bit unusual and the gravy had a delicious thickness to it, almost like jelly. The only slight criticism I might have is that there was a lot of mint, verging on too much. This certainly didn't stop this being one of my favourite ever pies. The meat was great quality and at £3 this pie was cheaper than many other pie establishments. I would note that one of my pie eating companions had a pork and apple pie which had far too much apple in it. It was like eating a sweet apple pie with pork in. So Sweeney and Todd are not perfect but for a pie lover it would be barbarous not to murder one of their demon pies.

Sweeney and Todd Vicar's Pie

Vicar's Pie (Sweeney and Todd)
Score: 6.30/7
SJL

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ExCel Centre - Creativevents Ltd - Chicken Pie and Steak Pie Reviews

The Emirates Air Line with the ExCel Centre in the background

The venue was the ExCel Centre in London, a humungous conference centre big enough to have multiple temporary arenas constructed inside. The Pierateers arrived in style taking the new cable car across the river Thames from Greenwich Peninsula to the Royal Docks. Despite only lasting a few minutes the experience was worth it for the views alone.
The Pierateers saw the quarter finals of the Women's Team matches Singapore v. North Korea and South Korea v. Hong Kong. In terms of pie experience Hong Kong clearly has an advantage however this didn't help as Singapore and South Korea both ran out 3-0 winners.

There has been plenty of talk, even on these pages, of Olympic food and pies being expensive. However, upon leaving the Pierateers were delighted to find someone directing people to the pie stall for half price pies. The normal price was £7 for pie, mash and peas, which didn't seem so bad for a meal in a sports venue. However, £3.50 was an absolute bargain (though we do of course consider the price as it would normally be sold, not the special offer price, when rating cheapness). You might think they were selling dried out pies cheap at the end of the day but far from it. Both pies has nearly perfect levels of crispiness of the pastry.

There were multiple pies on offer so the Pierateers chose one Chicken and one Steak. The chicken pie was complemented for it's crisp and delicious pastry and large chunks of meatylicious chicken. The sauce was nice and creamy. This would clearly inspire a generation of pie eaters.

The Steak pie was much the same, the meat was fantastically tender. The pastry perfectly gooey. Despite already having eaten dinner this Pierateer could have eaten another of these pies they were so good.

Given this unique opportunity to showcase British pies it was great that the organisers put the emphais on quality. So often at sports venues, because of the capitive audience the food is mediocre.

These pies are another great performance and surely a gold medal to cap off a wonderful Olympic games for Team GB.

P.S. The company providing these pies was Creativevents, if you are ever organising an Olympic games they come as highly rated caterers.

Chicken Pie (ExCel Centre - Creativevents Ltd)
5.50/7 (RAS)

Steak Pie (ExCel Centre - Creativevents Ltd)
5.50/7 (SJL)

The ExCel Centre Steak Pie

The ExCel Centre Chicken Pie

SJL

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Peter's Steak Pie review

London 2012 venue 'The City of Coventry Stadium'

The pastry was golden and the filling piping hot (possibly even too hot – I had to wait a while for it to cool down!) The gravy was delicious and complimented the meat well, with my main disappointment being that the chunks of meat were a bit too large and therefore meat was not well spaced evenly throughout the pie but more in clusters. But the pie itself was a good effort, particularly appeasing the footie pie fan within me. While not a gold medal winning effort, it was certainly worthy of a medal and the Olympic movement should be happy with the pies on offer. What I only found out later was that this was in fact a Peter’s Steak Pie, for the branding had been removed pre-Olympic Games due to there not being an official Pie sponsor of the Olympic Games. It only begs the question “why is there not a pie sponsor for the Olympics?!?!”

Score: 5.75/7

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So what better time than celebrating the #100thPie Review to announce that the Pierateers have a new logo and t-shirt to celebrate the success of the world's most popular pie reviewing blog! So look out for the Pierateers wearing their Pierate Ship t-shirts with pride in pubs and pie shops near you in the coming months...

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Well it was bound to come sooner rather than later, with so many pies being eaten and reviewed amongst a busy schedule for the Pierateers, so 852 days after the first review on www.pierate.co.uk, the world's most popular pie blog, we have reached a milestone #100thPie Review! Thanks to everyone who has supported and encouraged the ridiculously high consumption of pies by the Pierateers (it's a wonder we're not all morbidly obese by now). And as a special treat for you all, the pies that got us up to #100thPie have been reviewed by the three most prolific Pierateers. Here goes:


So to mark the final appearance of one of the Pierateers in West London, the three most prolific reviewers hit Westfield Shopping Centre to give Square Pie a go. You can imagine from the it-does-exactly-what-it-does-on-the-tin title of the company that the pies were all - you guessed it - a square shape. So with three Pierateers and way more than three different flavours of pie on the menu, here are the 98th, 99th and 100th pie reviews on www.pierate.co.uk:

Square Pie: Steak and Cheese = 4.34/7
Reviewed by TJP
The Steak and Cheese pie was a high quality offering and the meat was particularly good, however the reviewer felt it was too salty overall which meant that the reviewer couldn't manage to finish the whole content of the pie. The pie was expensive, but it was evident that they cared about the condition the pie came in.



Square Pie: Chicken Curry = 5.25/7
Reviewed by SJL
It was a nice, vintage pie, with light pastry and a spicy but not too hot filling. It packed a flavoursome punch. The pastry was nice and light, gooey and complemented the contents well. A bit too pricey but one thing I would say is that the pie was certainly filling, so this more than made up for the cost.



Square Pie: Steak and Kidney =5.15/7
Reviewed by RAS
The pastry was nice and light, with no thick side crust which can be the downside of many a pie. The content was very nice, with good chunks of tasty steak. The gravy was also very good, and the mix of content between the steak, kidney and chunks of carrot worked well. The price was quite high but for a filling pie it was worth the expense.



So there you have it - the #100thPie reviewed and here's to the next 100 pie reviews!

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Steak Pie – The Soak, Bristol Road, Birmingham (B29 6AF)
Score: 4.15/7

RAS

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