Thursday 19 August 2010

2 Beef or Not 2 Beef... That is the question!

Alas poor pie man, I knew not what I was letting myself in for... honest!
Upon wandering through Stratford-Upon-Avon, I noticed The Garrick Inn, the oldest pub in town and considering that there are some pretty old pubs in this town, I assumed it would be an interesting steak pie experience with their 'British Beef & Ruddles Ale Pie' on the menu.

It was busy and a little cramped, with the back of my chair touching the back of another one. Still, I had candlelight and extra gravy to cheer me up.
It is served with either chips or mash and is one half portion of a plate pie, a decent size.
The pastry was short crust and very thick, in fact too thick and very dry around the edges and didn't look, feel or taste home-made.
On comparing the thickness of the pastry with the depth of the pie filling, the ratio seemed out of balance which leads to the question of what is the ideal ratio of pastry to filling?
My preference would always be heavy on the filling side and this pie (being a plate pie) was too thin on the filling with only a few chunks of beef and too much gravy inside... not very exciting at all.
The mash was tastier than the pie and I left the crust, too thick, hard and dry for me.
It was the overall imbalance of the filling to pastry ratio and also the quality of both the filling and the pastry which gives this £8.45 steak pie experience a 4.

2 comments:

  1. Ahh, the infamous best pie blog! As a fellow steak pie fan who regularly gets told to 'try something different to steak pie' when eating out, I'm looking forward to your reviews! I'm hoping it will help me to spend my steak pie eating budget wisely:)

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  2. A pleasure to be at your service fellow pie lover. I hope you find my tastings useful.

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