S for  'steak' or S for 'Superpie?'

Bam! Pie explosion!

Pretty impressive, right? If that isn't full marks for content then I'm not sure what is. The pie is stacked to the top crust with content. I can see the tender chunks of steak - which is even still a bit pink, wow! There is a mixture of roughly chopped and finely chopped onion, mushrooms and even bacon. This is epic.

I'm relieved that the pie also tastes as good as it looks. The steak is not at all chewy, and for a pie that looks like it doesn't have much gravy, all the ingredients are moist and delicious. There is a great peppery element to this pie as well, giving it a great kick alongside the Guinness. The pastry is also supreme.

This pie is stunning to look at, hefty, and a taste sensation. It's the ultimate comfort food, something which Paul tells me he strives for when he makes his pies. The British Pie Awards have got it right in awarding this pie very high honours. I'm bowled over by this pie, which puts so many other pies to shame. It's epic in every way I can imagine.

Paul's Pies Steak and Guinness Pie
Score: 6.73/7

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Tesco Roast Chicken Puff Pastry Pie

Cos it fell apart,
I'd wanted to share.

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So the eagle-pied among you will have noticed that the 119th pie to be reviewed scored 6.01/7 and thus means that if you flick over to our Pie Rankings, every pie in our top 20 is now scoring 6/7 or higher! So many brilliant pies out there! So what better way to celebrate than to have a bit of a song and dance about our brilliant pies with a rewording of will.i.am and Britney S-pie-ars number 1 tune "Scream and Shout" ('Bring the Pies' edition). Who knows, maybe it'll be available on PieTunes one day?!


Bring the pies

When we up in the pub, All pies on us, All pies on us, All pies on us

Everybody in the pub, Eat pie with us, Eat pie with us, Eat pie with us

You are now now rocking with all the funky Pierateers

Rock and roll
Everybody let’s lose control
Eat more pie until we blow
Eating fast, we ain’t going slow-low-low
Hey yo
Eat the pie, now let’s review
Hope the pie you’ve had’s brand new
Post it up and let people know
Hey yo
Eating out and eating now
Cos we know what we talking bout
Sailing the seven Cs s Cs
Hey yo
Eat it up and eat it now
Here we go we go eat it
Cause everywhere we go we
Bring the pies

When we up in the pub, All pies on us, All pies on us, All pies on us

Everybody in the pub, Eat pie with us, Eat pie with us, Eat pie with us
You are now now rocking with all the funky Pierateers

We eat on and on and on and on
When me and you eat together
I wish this pie would last forever
Cause I was feeling down and now feel better
We eat on and on and on and on
When me and you eat together
I wish this pie would last forever
Ever ever ever ever

You are now now rocking with all the funky Pierateers

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It won’t come as any surprise that the pie market is fast becoming one of the most highly competitive food markets out there. Specialist pie shops and shops starting to sell pies as part of their menu are appearing all over the place! Which is brilliant, don’t get me wrong, but it can make finding the best pie an ever growing challenge. What we need is a company out there who can get the uppercrust on their pastry making com-pie-titors and give us a name we can trust. And surely one of the best at doing that is Uppercrust themselves! Intriguingly rebranded from McDougalls, Uppercrust certainly appear to be appealing to the high end pie market. I get offered a pie invite by @xethian to try out the Uppercrust Chicken & Asparagus pie. It’s meant to be a “family sized” pie, though basically that means it serves two fully grown manly pie eaters. Here goes...



What a serving suggestion!

The pastry lid certainly didn’t cook golden brown as evenly as it had in the “serving suggestion” on the box – which, while we’re on the topic of “serving suggestions” was one of the best I’d seen in literally being the pie...on a plate! Classic! Glad I now know not to eat my next pie out of a dog bowl...

Score: 6.01/7

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Following the recent emptypiegate scandal, I thought it would only be fair to give ASDA a chance to redeem themselves. I head to the supermarket giant's frozen section and pick up a pack of 4 ASDA Steak and Gravy pies (624g) for a bargain-bucket price of £2. £2 for four pies? ASDA seem to be giving them away at that price, especially since my recent ASDA pie purchase set me back £2.88 for a single pie. Is this a false economy, though? Have I bought another empty pie of disappointment?

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McDonald's Sweet Berry Pie... or so they call it!

For in place of their regular Apple “Pie” and shortly after the release of their festive Christmas Orange Flavour Chocolate “Pie”, McDonald’s have this time come up with a Sweet Berry and Custard “Pie”. Yeah, that’s right. I think the quotation marks tell you everything.

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Pieminister Pie Review - Free Ranger

Pieminister Free Ranger pie

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Tesco Apple and Blackberry Pie Review

Oh...how did all those other pie boxes "happen" to get in the background?!

Well, once again the Tesco sweet pie really does contain tasty chunks of Bramley apple and juicy blackberries in a delicious sweet sauce. There’s certainly no missing them, as they are slightly chewy due to their crisp nature, but the content is good and capacity next to bursting! The flavours complimented each other well and the golden coloured sweet butter enriched pastry. The short crust pastry was lovely and crunchy – perhaps almost a little too much bite to it but generally of a very high standard. The lid and base had no signs of sogginess, coming out in very good condition, and the filling was particularly fruity and full of flavour. While not blown away, it was a very reasonable pie (reasonably cheap at £2.60 for 8 slices) and I would certainly commend it. The taste was certainly consistently good throughout the pie. It seems like Tesco have finally got something right!



Score: 5.15/7

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Now here at Pierate we hold unswervingly to the premise that if it isn't about pies, it isn't going on Pierate. No questions asked. Even our delve into Politics and our celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympic Games were all soaked in pie-related goodness.

But I guess with every rule, there has to be some sort of get-out clause. And for us here at Pierate, if there is one thing we’re willing to discuss on this blog that isn’t directly related to the humble pie itself, it’s having a bit of pun with words. For what would a good pie review be without a play on the name, the ingredients or where we ate pie?!

So thank you BBC for your 1,200 words spent debating the pros, the cons, the rise and fall of this humble art form:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21011778

I particularly commend the following from Sally Davies:

“The efflorescence of punnery on social networking sites...suggests that puns have become acceptable as part of the online conversation.”

However despite all the debate and the suggestion of a bright online future for the pun, for us here at Pierate there is no doubt. Like you can’t have a filling without a full casing of pastry surrounding it, you can’t have a good pie review without some pun and games. Fact! 

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I guess it should have got my ATTENTION! as soon as I read it. Maybe I’m being a bit shallow venting my disappointment on the web. But I can’t help thinking these were very standard and rather shallow Mince Pies. I guess you would have to say they do exactly what they say on the packet, but it certainly means that they don’t get anywhere close to the top 20 on pierate!

That's right - just 15mm high... (shallow)

While nothing wrong with the taste, it did feel lacking in...well...pie really! But I’d like to thank the Niclasens for hosting this pie tasting session (and the kids seemed happy enough with the pies, to be fair). Still, I’d recommend sticking to the luxury deep filled mince pies on offer next Christmas time.



Score: 4/7

RAS

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I've come here to Clerkenwell, London, to sample a pie from Clarks Pie and Mash Shop.

It looks to be quite a traditional pie joint, with a brown and green painted shop front that promotes the sale of eels and pie & mash. A man hovers outside. He is on the phone, and appears to poke his head in and out of the door several times.

Once inside, I see a hand-written price list on the wall. It seems to be quite non-specific - giving the price for 'one small pie and mash', 'one large pie and mash', 'two large pies and mash', and 'eels'. There doesn't seem to be a list of pie fillings that I can see anywhere. When I am served, I ask for a 'large pie' in the hope that I'll be given a list of fillings I can choose from. I am not. I am instead just served,  at an acceptable cost of £2.20, one non-specific 'large pie' in a take-away container. Well that's fine, I think, perhaps they only do one type of filling. And then as I left the shop, it struck me - perhaps this pie joint is so traditional that it is actually an eel pie?

I cut open the pie just to check. Luckily it doesn't look like any eel I've ever eaten (eel is actually quite nice, but I just wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing today) - it looks like it is probably minced beef. Potentially.

As you can see from the picture, the pie looks a little strange to me. The pastry, rather than being flaky, feels to me a bit rubbery and looks quite anaemic and flabby. The base of the pie is suffering from what Mary Berry would call "soggy bottom", and although the top crust of the pie is firm, it is not crispy and has no crunch. I also feel the pie looks quite small for a 'large' pie - but perhaps the 'large' actually referred to the mash (which I didn't order) rather than the pie itself? The condition the pie was presented to me wasn't great - in an oversized polystyrene box. What some of the pie vendors these days are doing are selling their pies in clever cardboard boxes - a much nicer presentation I think.

I am still none the wiser about the content of this pie - but this can often lead to a pleasant surprise! But unfortunately I wasn't pleasantly surprised in this case. The filling - I'm not sure, some kind of miscellaneous minced meat, likely candidate beef - looked and smelled a bit like cat-food to me. I know that sounds a little harsh, but I really couldn't get this thought out of my head. I'm quite glad I didn't order two pies, which I was considering, because even after one pie I felt a little queasy. I had to stop by at a local newsagent to buy a strongly-flavoured fruity soft drink to remove the cat-foody taste from my mouth. For a shop that specialises in 'pie & mash', I would have expected much much more. This was just my opinion though, I have heard good things about this shop.

2.3/7
TJP

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In preparation for the Pierate Pie Festival Extravaganza 2012 (the review of which is coming soon - we're just gathering together the footage of this epic event!), I thought I'd pay a visit to my local ASDA store to purchase some pies. Seeing an ASDA Bistro Ultimate Steak and Ale pie for sale, and remembering how good the ASDA Bistro Ultimate Steak pie was, I thought I'd splash out on the £2.88 price tag it commanded. It's got to be worth it, right?













On the face of it, this pie looks quite promising. It has a quirky appeal to it, sporting an unconventional 'basin' -style shortcrust base topped off with a rustic wholesome lid. Overall, the colour of this pie and the condition which it has arrived score quite well. Unfortunately, that's about where the positives for this review end.

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