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Roger Rabbits with |
It was a clean surgical excision, a gob-size bite, from a still bagged mince and cheese pie. And the bloke with the gobful, was gazing intently into the cavity. Why?
“It’s a pie,” I said. “For the eating thereof. So just gob it.”
“Uh huh!” he disagreed. “A thing of simple pleasure. A sensory experience. To be savoured.”
But not this pie – the pastry had haemorrhaged and goop, the colour and consistency of sump sludge, was about to mess his shirt front. Or have him committed to the burns unit.
It was, he decided, “a pirate pie”. A dud.
Then this thought, this flake of pastry….“I read that in a perfect pie, both the pastry and filling, should be independently perfect – the buttery, flaky mouthfeel of the pastry, and the mouthfeel of rich, unctuous filling. And the whole is more than the sum of its parts.”
Mouthfeel? Pretentious. Doesn’t unctuous mean greasy? Vomitus!
That’s when bloke, a student of ‘pie-litics’ – as one wag said, like politics but more interesting – suggested we check out lesser-known pie stops around town. “News you can use,” he said, dusting pastry and mince from his beard.
I thought the power dynamics of the Tauranga pie industry were well established – Patrick Lam, Bake Shack and the like.
Two animals in one pie
“Do some research, scratch around under the pastry,” he urged. So, on a recommendation, we pack a cut lunch and water bottle for the trek to Pāpāmoa. You are hungry again by the time you get there. And you are in the market for a pie at Rise Bakery. “Lots of fun flavours,” I was told.
Steak, bacon and cheese was the go-to. “What’s better than eating one animal? Eating two, of course.”
Pies, by nature, should be uncomplicated, so go for the common old, garden variety mince pie. There can be sophistication in simplicity – that perfect union when pastry and mince become one, sing in harmony.
One said it was “just an office pie, a classic pie from anywhere”. Ouch!
Okay, but still memorable in its ordinariness. Don’t underestimate the pulling power of a good mince pie. I know someone who makes a half-hour round trip from Bayfair to The Sand Bakery on Cameron Rd for a mince pie. “It’s the bang.” Bang?
The Bunker Buster…
Now do a “u-ee”, pack another cut lunch and head 40km to Ōmokoroa and a shed; a nice shed called Next Door cafe. Factor in traffic snarls and a roundabout refusing to be finished, and you’ll be hungry again by the time you arrive. You’ll need to be.
“A simple mince pie please?” “We don’t do simple – we do an experience.”
A $9 experience, the Bunker Buster of pies, the biggest non-nuclear pie in the US arsenal. Looks substantial, is substantial. Smoked cheddar and mince, a ‘tradie’s pie’ apparently. Must be sophisticated and well paid tradies in Ōmokoroa.
All honey brown and homely and screaming “pick me” from the warmer. Seems you can buy a smaller junk $5 pie, but a tradie would need two to “do the job”. Even at $9 these pies have been “doing the job” for years. No pushback on price.
Sunday service
I dismembered the beast and set it before a tasting panel of office jackals. “Pizza like – delish – I wanna whole one.” “A different experience. Attacks all the senses.” “I’d pay $9.” One got a bit sniffy. “Too much going on there.”
If a pie is the ultimate comfort food, pop on the slippers and cardy and mosey into the Empire Bakery on Grange Rd – all the intimacy of the aged aunt’s home kitchen. Neat as a pin and a good feel. You sense the pie with the handwritten ‘M’ on the bag was made with ‘lerv’ just for you. Tasted like it.
“Thank you,” I said, investing another $5.70 in this column and one of his self-professed “famous” pies. The “you’re welcome” smile and double-barrelled thumb pump were complimentary. And if his pies aren’t quite famous yet, they should be.
The pastry flakes on the floor of the car are testament to the pull of the mini mince pies at the Cherrywood Bakery. Some of us suffer from the crazy notion that snacking a couple of good minis is nowhere as bad as scoffing a full pie.
If there was a preferred pie, I found it down Chadwick Rd in Greerton – at ‘Baker Bob’, sandwiched between a dairy and a Thai takeout. Mum and two kids ahead of me bought eight pies between them. Make it nine! They grabbed a bacon and egg “just in case”. And a queue in a pie shop?
Baker Bob does simple well. A golden crust with integrity and a nicely balanced filling were harmonising. A pie that hits hard. I was only going to dabble – two or three bites as a tester, but then I scoffed the whole thing. Warmth and nostalgia in there.
Like the church up the road, ‘Baker Bob’ now does Sunday service, he’s open on the Sabbath. “Excellent,” said a very chipper pie worshipper. Yes, bless him. I had a mildly compromised BMI before setting out on this journey. Now they call me ‘Three Pies’. Lovely!