The Robin Hood, Durley, 23rd February 2012

Joe, Nick, Trev and new member Paul (welcome) duly met at the bus stop in Bishops Waltham to catch the number 7 bus for the short ride to The Robin Hood, Durley. Doug had sent his apologies and Si was on a mission in Bali at an organic yoga retreat to find the best Balinese pie.

The bus was on time so arrived at the pub to allow plenty of time to sample the beers before tucking into the pies.

We received a friendly welcome when entering the pub and we were all highly impressed by the extremely pleasant ambience!

There were a good selection of beers : Black Sheep Bitter 3.8%, Timothy Taylor Landlord 4.3%,  Old Speckled Hen 4.3%, and for Paul, Becks Vier 4%. 

Joe, Nick and Trev all started off with the Black Sheep Bitter which was excellent and went down very well. Trev then switched to the Timothy Taylors Landlord which is one of his favourite beers of all time and it didn't disappoint.

After a couple of beers we decided it was time to tuck into the pies! After some excellent but tough earlier negotiations by Joe the chef had agreed to prepare a game suet pudding for us - the game was a mix of venison, rabbit and pheasant. We all ordered the same which arrived on a bed of mashed potatoes with a few green beans sprinkled on top.

Everyone agreed the pie was very good with a good portion of filling which was very tender and the suet casing was very tasty. As we are a healthy bunch of Gents and fully committed to getting our 5 a day (veg that is) a selection of veg would have been welcome - maybe we could have ordered that separately from the menu?

After a short break and another pint we shifted our attention to the excellent choice on the desserts menu. Joe and Trev both opted for the cheese plate which had a good  choice of local cheeses.

Nick opted for the Coconut and Raspberry tart for the high fruit content to fit in with his diet!

Paul went for the traditional Apple Crumble with custard.

By the emptiness of the plates afterwards everyone seemed to enjoy their desserts!

We then paid up and caught the bus back to Bishops Waltham - where feeling tired after all the travel we popped into the Barleycorn for a reviver!

Scores (max. 5 in each category, 25 overall):

• Pastry 3.75
• Filling 3.875
• Beer 4.0
• Ambience 4.375
• Value 3.625
• Overall 19.625

Pieman's Australian tour, February 2012

Pieman recently completed a 6-week trip around Victoria, Australia. Having been to Australia before, he knew that the chances of finding the perfect pie/pint combination in Australia were slim, but he couldn't resist his natural inclination to sample a few pies while he was out there. Here are his impressions.

Let's deal with Australian beer first, and let's be quite clear about this: It's all rubbish. Overpriced, cold, gassy, tasteless rubbish.  Another problem is that you don't often get pies served in Australian pubs. It seems that Aussies would rather gamble than eat in their pubs. (What a good idea! - let people get drunk while they're gambling, and even provide atms so that if they run out of money they can always get some more!). So Pieman was, for the most part, limited to eating pies in restaurants, cafes, bakeries, etc.

The first pie that Pieman sampled was excellent. It was at the Dunkeld Gourmet Pantry, in Dunkeld NW Victoria (a small sleepy town on the way to the Grampians, in the middle of the outback, with not a lot to commend it except this restaurant, which was rather a good find:

This was an individual Chicken and Leek Pie, served with some find home-made chips and the usual token rabbit food. Note the fine pastry-work. For once, this place lived up to its name. This was a gourmet pie, probably one of the best that Pieman has ever tasted. It's a shame that you have to travel so far to try one.   

After finding such a good pie, Pieman was encouraged to sample another pie in a delightful little cafe ("Apple Annie's") in Castlemaine, Victoria:

It was an individual Beef & Burgundy pie served with chips, salad, and (rather unusually) a dollop of vegetable curry. This was quite a pleasant pie, and the curry accompanyment was actually rather a good idea. Pieman's alter ego does have a fondness for curry, so this meal actually combined two of his favourite meals in one, and he left Apple Annie feeling very satisfied.

So far so good, but from here on things take a turn for the worse.

Australian cricket and footie fans go all dewy-eyed whenever the pies at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) are mentioned, often going on at great length about how wonderful the Four'N Twenty Pies are. So Pieman felt obliged to try one when he went to the MCG to watch an Australia v India ODI.

Pieman wishes that he hadn't bothered. This was without any doubt the worst pie he has ever tasted. He felt ill for 24 hours after eating it. His partner (Mrs Pieman) tried one and claims that she was ill for the next 2 weeks. Pieman was so traumatised by the experience that he still refuses to say anything more about it. These pies should carry a health-warning. Avoid at all costs. If we assessed pies on a Celsius scale, this pie would score -273c. It represents absolute zero on our pie scale. At least it provides us with a baseline, against which to measure all other pies.

Having resolved to avoid Australian pies for evermore, Pieman wandered into a bakery in Echuca, in far-north Victoria, and his eye was caught by a Ned Kelly Pie:

Now, Pieman really should have known better. He's been into Australian bakeries before, where they often have dozens of different types of pie on offer (see below), and he should have remembered from his earlier visit to Australia that bakery pies are nearly always bad. Plus, these particular pies look suspiciously like quiches, and he should have remembered Pie Club Rule #8 ("Any member who ever suggests eating a quiche may, by a majority vote of the founder members, be dismissed from the Club"). Nothwithstanding any of this, he succumbed to temptation, and persuaded himself that they are not quiches because the solid congealed mass on top (made of egg, bacon and cheese) forms a solid barrier, and isn't soft and mushy like a quiche. The pie was served hot, but beneath the congealed mass on top  lurked a cold mass of (allegedly) minced beef.  It sounds bad, but Pieman was starving at the time, would have eaten anything, and at least he didn't feel ill afterwards. So it wasn't as bad as the MCG pie.

Sample Australian Bakery Pie menu (don't ever be tempted to try any of them):

At this point Pieman had learned his lesson, and decided to avoid all Austalian pies in future. And so should you.

The Bugle Inn, Twyford, 24th November 2011

After our disappointing experience last month, Trev and Si took great pains to ensure that we would not be disappointed with our next outing, even going so far to to undertake a reconnaissance visit to this pub earlier in the month. So, it was with some anticipation that we boarded the No. 69 bus to visit The Bugle Inn in Twyford.

Unfortunately Doug was unable to join us for this outing, so it was Trev, Si, and Joe who (perhaps surprisingly) managed to all catch the same bus. Nick already had some business to attend to in Twyford, so met us at the pub.

Some might say that this place is rather more of a restaurant and less of a pub, but as we were warmly greeted by the barmaid and shown to the comfortable leather sofas in front of the blazing log fire to sup our first pints of beer we all thought "this'll do nicely". The ales on offer were Bowman Ales Swift One 3.8% (our perennial favourite, at £3.25/pint), The Governor 3.8% (Marco Pierre White's own brew, from Manchester), Flowerpots Goodens Gold 4.8%, and Flowerpots IPA 6%. A fine selection of ales. We thought it wise to save the stronger ales until later, so we all settled down with pints of Swift One while we studied the menus.

As there was only one pie available on the menu, it didn't take us long to decide what to order. We had been hoping for a venison and port pie, but unfortunately it wasn't available as the local butcher didn't have any venison. So we all ordered the Steak and Ale Pie, or (to quote the menu) "freshly baked pie made with Hampshire beef and local Flowerpots Bitter, served with creamy potato and celeriac mash and fruity braised red cabbage £12.95":

Except Joe asked for his pie to be served with the rather more traditional peas and chips:

The first thing we noticed about the pies was that they were individual pies instead of slices from a large pie. In general we are not so keen on individual pies because if they are fully encased in pastry  (as they should be) then the ratio of pastry to filling tends to be too high. In this case, however, this was not a problem as the chef had introduced an interesting variation: the pastry was thin on top but with thick bevelling around the edge, and there was a thin layer of pastry extending down the sides. There was no pastry at the bottom of the pie. The second thing we noticed was that it was puff pastry, which we normally disapprove of. The third thing we noticed was the lack of any unnecessary garnishing - no unwelcome sprigs of parsley or other greenery.

However, the proof of the pie is in the eating, and here (with the possible exception of Nick) we were all very impressed. The pastry was delicious. The filling was near-perfect, "a complex fabric of complimentary flavours" to quote Nick. The vegetables were delicious. Joe was so impressed with his chips that he let us all have a taste, and we all agreed they were perfect.  Portion sizes were just right so we still had room for puddings.

The puddings were also exceptionally good. Nick had the fresh fruit pavlova with double cream, mint & coulis, which looked fabulous:

Trev had freshly baked gooey chocolate pudding with Jude's vanilla pod ice cream (delicious, apparently):

Si had Chocolate, Orange and Cointreau pot with amoretti biscuit and Jude's hazlenut ice cream. He thought the pot was a bit difficult to finish as it was so rich:

And Joe was content to have just a scoop of ice cream:

The general ambience of the pub was very good. It was modern, clean and comfortable. The service was excellent.  There were a few other customers there (mostly women), but not enough to spoil our enjoyment of what was an exceptionally fine meal.  There was background music, but it was tasteful, and we didn't even notice it until we retired back to the sofas for our last pint. At this point Si couldn't resist trying a pint of the Flowerpots IPA 6%, which was sufficient to render him comatose for a few hours when he got home.

The final bill came to £32.50 each, so it was not a cheap meal, and this is reflected in the scores for value-for-money.

A final small point of detail: the beer was served in glasses with built-in finger-grips! Attention to detail like that can make such a difference:

Scores (max. 5 in each category, 25 overall):

• Pastry 4.05
• Filling 4.175
• Beer 4.2
• Ambience 4.375
• Value 3.5
• Overall 20.3

This puts the Bugle in 3rd place in our rankings, after the Bowman (21.5) and the Barleycorn (20.375).  This is rather a surprising result, given that we all enjoyed the meal so much. The poor score for value-for-money was clearly a factor, but what price do you put on quality?

There won't be a pie club meeting in December, to allow more time for members to sample mince pies. So the next meeting will be on 26th January 2012. At this time 2 pie club members will be in Australia, so we can all look forward to some reports on Australian pies!

The Farmers Home, Durley, 27th October 2011

We had planned to use our bus passes on the No.7 bus to Durley then walk the last half mile to the The Farmers Home, but it was raining, and Doug's wife offered us a lift as it was on her way to somewhere or other, so, despite our avowed intentions of being self-sufficient and not dependent on our good ladies to any extent,  we took her up on her kind offer.

Unfortunately, Joe had to drop out of this Pie Club meeting, so it was Trev, Nick, Doug and Si who trudged through the rain all the way from the car parked on the streeet outside, into the pub, to be welcomed by a friendly barmaid and shown straight to our table.

First impressions were good. There was a nice friendly welcome, a cosy looking pub with not too many customers, and a choice of Steak & Mushroom Pie (£7.95), Creamy Chicken & Bacon Pie (£7.95), or Steak & Kidney Pudding (£8.95) on the menu. But we noticed straight away that the choice of ales was limited to Ringwood Best 3.8% or Gales HSB 4.8%, which was a bit disappointing, and maybe a warning of things to come.

Expecting a long session ahead, we decided to steer clear of the HSB. We settled down with pints of Ringwood Best while we considered the difficult matter of choosing our pies from the menu. This was complicated by the fact that there was a special deal available whereby you could have two courses for £8.95 if you chose your main course from the lunch menu (which included the two pies, but excluded the Steak & Kidney Pudding, as that was on the Specials menu). In the end, Trev and Nick both chose the Creamy Chicken & Bacon Pie, and Doug and Si opted for the Steak & Kidney Pudding.

We had barely started our second pints when the food arrived. Fast service!

The Creamy Chicken & Bacon Pie looked good, despite only having a shortcrust pastry topping instead of being fully enclosed in pastry as it should be, and despite being adorned with a totally-unnecessary sprig of parsley:

The Steak & Kidney Pudding looked good as well, being amply proportioned, but again having a totally-unnecessary large sprig of parsley:

The pies were served with an ample helping of nicely-cooked vegetables comprising mashed swede, brocolli, and carrots:

Doug, Trev and Nick all had a big helping of new potatoes with their meal:

Si thought that this showed dangerous signs of people going for the healthy option, stuck to his principles, and chose to have chips. This resulted in quite a pleasing visual effect:

As we ate our pies it became apparent that all was not well. The food was alright, but not great. The shortcrust pie pastry and the suet pudding pastry were both disappointing. The Steak & Kidney Pudding filling was thin, with not a lot of meat, and what meat there was was finely chopped instead of being chunky. But the main problem was that the beer was not going down very well. It was settling heavily in the stomach and putting us off our food. By the end of the second pint most of us had had enough, although some of us did manage a third pint. The beer was certainly too cold, which may explain the problem. We couldn't even manage any puddings.

The general ambience of the pub was initially quite good, but as time went by the place filled up with more and more  people (mostly pensioners, probably drawn there by the special offer), and it got quite noisy. We quite like not having to share a pub with too many other customers.

So we ended up having quite a short session. We had intended to get the No.7 bus back again, but it's an hourly service and we'd just missed a bus, and it was coming on to rain again, so (despite our reservations) Nick persuaded his good wife to pick us up and give us all a lift home. She's very kind.

Scores (max. 5 in each category, 25 overall):

• Pastry 3.25
• Filling 3.375
• Beer 2.925
• Ambience 2.875
• Value 3.875
• Overall 16.3

This puts The Farmers Home in 6th place (out of 7) in our rankings. The only pub worse than this was The White Horse, Beeches Hill (which has since had a change of landlord).

The next Pie Club meeting will be on 24th November. Trev to decide the venue.

The Ship Inn, Kingswear, 8th October 2011

Whilst taking a well-earned short break in Devon, Simon had a good meal at The Ship Inn, Kingswear.

To make a change from fish (almost compulsory in this part of the world) Simon opted for the Cow Pie (this being the first time he had come across a Cow Pie on a menu anywhere). It was a great pie, let down by the puff pastry topping, as can be seen below:

The filling was perfect: 1" cubes of tender lean beef in a delicious gravy with nothing extraneous added, and lots of it! The accompanying vegetables were fresh perfectly cooked. The chips were hand-cut and cooked perfectly. The accompanying ales were excellent: there was a choice of 5, including the ever-tempting Otter Amber Ale 4%, which was nicely served at the correct temperature. The pub landlord, Colin,  and the staff were very friendly and welcoming. The general ambience was very good.  Value for money was fair, with the beer weighing in at only £2.80/pint.

But the whole thing was let down by the puff pastry topping. It wasn't even good puff pastry. It was dry and tasteless and stuck to the roof of your mouth. It was like eating a dry cream cracker, only not as tasty.

To make up for the disappointment of the first course, Simon had another pint, and some pudding - very good fruit crumble with custard:

After the meal Simon remonstrated with Colin about the poor quality of the pastry. The landlord was very apologetic, and explained that they'd tried using proper short-crust pastry but there were too many problems with it. Apparently it's something to do with the re-heating. To which Simon's only reply was "Huh!".

PS Simon was accompanied on this trip by his good wife Jean, who had Whole Plaice and Chips, which she said was excellent.

PPS On this same trip Simon visited The Cherub Inn in Dartmouth with Jean:

It's a fine pub, but when Simon asked "What's the Pie of the Day?" the answer was "Fish Pie". Enough said.

Please note that Simon visited the pub without any other members of the Club, so opinions expressed above are purely personal and not representative of the Club.

Australian Pies

Pieman has recently received this photo of a typical Australian gourmet pie from an associate currently working down under:

It looks pretty good, although Pieman has his doubts about the dollop of ketchup on top, and, what's more, he thought Australian pies were traditionally served upside down, and surrounded by a generous helping of mushy peas (what the Australians charmingly refer to as a "pie floater").

Some Pie Club members will be visiting Australia early next year, so expect to see some pie reviews from down under soon.

All Australian beer is rubbish, of course, so there's no danger of the Aussies doing better than the Poms in our ongoing quest for the perfect Pie/Pint combination.

An expedition along the No. 17 Bus Route

Whilst researching possible venues for the next Pie Club outing, Pieman (accompanied by his long-suffering wife) undertook the hazardous task of visiting all the pubs on the No 17 bus route, which runs from Bishops Waltham to Petersfield, to try to find a pub that serves a pie worthy of our attention. The results were mixed, and largely disappointing:

The Bakers Arms, Droxford

May be worth a visit because we know the food here is seriously good, but there was no pie on the menu when Pieman visited, although their web site says there is a Chicken & Mushroom Pie with mashed potato at £12.95 (expensive).

The Bucks Head, Meonstoke

Possibly worth a visit. One "big and hearty" Steak & Ale Pie with shortcrust pastry @ £9.50

The Shoe, Exton

Doubtful, and expensive. A Steak & Wine Pie with mash and puff pastry @ £12.50. The service here is still as bad as ever, even on a quiet day.

The George & Falcon, Warnford

Might be interesting, but it's a large pub with poor ambience, and expensive. Their "Pie of the Day" when Pieman visited was Pork & Apple with a puff pastry lid and shortcrust pastry lining @ 12.50 

Thomas Lord, West Meon

Nice looking pub, but no pies. Disappointing!

The Olde George Inn, East Meon

Nice looking pub, but no pies. Disappointing!

The Isaac Walton, East Meon

No pies

Seven Stars, Stroud

Doubtful, big family pub with poor ambience. Steak & Ale pie @ £9.45

The Good Intent, Petersfield

Pub closed down.

The Square Brewery, Petersfield

Nice pub, but no pies

The Folly, Petersfield

Nice pub, but no pies

Other pubs in Petersfield

There was not enough time to visit all the other pubs in Petersfield, but a quick tour failed to find any that would justify the long bus trip from Bishops Waltham. It didn't look as if any served pies.