Sunday, 21 October 2012

Tasty at the Tavern?

Selly park tavern pieThe Selly ParkTavern was the place to go with friends from the X:site youth event in Birmingham, to catch up on the latest event and have a meal together. And with the night chosen being “Pie Night”, surely it couldn’t have been better timed! So having ordered my Chicken and Ham Suet Pie, I eagerly awaited its arrival – especially as there hadn’t been even a hint of a discount on the pie despite it being pie night after all! Was it really that good?!

Pie

Sadly I have to say it didn’t blow me away. The filling was quite a nice consistency with the chicken and ham complementing one another well. It was a nice sauce too. However the pastry left me disappointed. It was rather too crispy and dry on the outside but with the pastry being quite thick the centre was quite soggy. The taste was also quite overpowering. Particularly as the price hadn’t even been discounted for pie night, it was a bit of a blow. There’s certainly better pies on the Ember Inns menu.

Chicken and Ham Suet Pie (Ember Inns)
Score: 3.95/7

RAS
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Friday, 12 October 2012

An Unfulfilling Situation - Tesco Pie Review

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.

Tesco everyday value chicken vegetable pieTesco everyday value pies

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.

Chicken and vegetable pie cheap filling

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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