Shit Faced at Pie Face

Q: What's better than 10 schooners of Carlton Draught and an Arctic Monkeys concert?
A: 10 schooners of Draught, an Arctic Monkeys concert, and a pie shop that's open for business beyond midnight; that's what.

Well that was the theory, anyway. Then along came Pie Face and the plan slowly but surely started to fall apart...much like the pies did after the first bite.

I had first sampled a Pie Face pie in Melbourne, pre-blog. I remember it clearly. It was grand final day, and as per usual, I was dustier than an Afghans undies from the previous evening's activities. A curry pie for breakfast would be just the ticket. Fortunately I was with the Mayor of Melbourne (OK, not the actual Mayor, but a bloke who has more connections than a Lego factory) and he told me about the new franchise on everyone's lips: Pie Face. We diverted our walk to 'The G' to head for the closest outlet.

Initially, I was disappointed that the closest thing on the menu to a curry beef pie was a Thai chicken curry pie, but I thought why the hell not? The pie looked pretty good and the shop smelled great, so I had high hopes. That was, until I started eating. 

The casing on this pie is diabolical. What looks like a slightly smallish, Standard size pie with a good shape almost fell inside out on itself once the first bite came out of it. Not only did this thing fail the driving test, it failed the walking test. I had to ask the Mayor to woo up completely so I could eat it without it running down my arm. Not only was the pastry soggy, but the filling was watery and apparently devoid of important ingredients...like chicken. It was an epic fail; a 4/10.

But everything deserves a second chance, right? The lovely Sanna from faraway Swabia assured me that the beef mince pie was pretty good, and we all know that a turd sandwich tastes superb after 10 schooners, so we found ourselves outside the Albert St store at midnight one Saturday after an Arctic Monkeys concert at the Riverstage fanging for some hot meaty goodness.

The window full of pies looked very appetizing, and the store smelled as good as I remembered. The pies all had cute little smiley faces on their lids, and looked to be egg washed too. Kudos. Have a look at this thing - it looks really really good. No WAY this is going to fall apart, right?

First surprise: these undersized Standard pies are $5.75. Gourmet territory.  Hmmmmmm. Franchise fees must be huge. Oh well, I guess Bentleys don’t grow on trees.

Second surprise: the 'plain mince' pie isn't plain at all, but is actually like a bolognese. Some might deem this to be a bonus. I call it false advertising.

No surprise: one bite, and the bastard disintegrated on me. Again. Dollops of magma-hot bolognese filling scalded my hand, and I had to hold the paper bag under it to stop it from dripping on the Hush Puppies. This is the Andrej Pejic of pies (Google him). Looks fantastic, but open it up and it's a whole other thing....

Admittedly, once I got over the betrayal of the plain/bolognese thing, the filling was pretty tasty, but the consistency was too sloppy and there wasn't enough of it. A pie from Beefys is twice the size for the same money, and a plain (oversize) Yatala pie is actually a whole dollar cheaper (and plain, as advertised).

But I guess when the franchise is started by a former investment banker who says that the branding, marketing and customer experience is as important as the product itself, you can probably expect that. I’ve heard that they are the fastest growing franchise in Australia, and that the head banana (Wayne) plans to take the concept to the UK and US in the hope of turning it into a billion dollar enterprise. All the pies are made in Sydney and transported to interstate stores once per week…so you know they’re fresh as. Beauuut.

Pie Face also has something called ‘Pie Jam’, which supports 240 unsigned musicians / bands, which is great in principle. Call me old fashioned, but I'd like to see a little more product focus and a little less smoke and mirrors. It takes more than a sharp brand and a smiley face to make a good pie, and personally I’m not sure that there’s much more to Pie Face than that.

So just to be sure I wasn't jumping to conclusions, I ordered another one. This time a chunky steak. I'll let the picture speak for itself, but it was another epic fail. It fell apart to the point that I had no choice but to take the unprecedented step of binning the remainder. A sad day indeed.

I can safely say that my face is now done with Pie Face.

Score 3/10.

 

Stay tuned, as I'm planning a special Australia Day edition of The Pieologist, on the famous Yatala Pie Shop... that's right, possums - two posting in one week (how does he do it?).