This is probably the most disgusting Salient rates yet. Imagine six people sitting in a circle on the floor of an untidy office. Imagine a pile of pies in the middle of that circle. So many pies. So many pies. Imagine the flaky pastry flaking all over the floor. Imagine the stench. Imagine the mince/curry/cheese/fat oozing out of the pies. We did feel sorry for the one vegan in the room who had to witness the spectacle that was the consumption of way too many pies. We apologised. Profusely. And then we ate all the pies. Almost. Without further ado, Salient rates: pies.
Big Ben Classic Mince pie 0/10
This pie was square and soggy. When we cut it open, there just didn’t seem to be much mince in there. It’s really not worth your time or money. Trade up to something slightly better.
Tulsi Vegetable Curry pie 3/10
Apparently there’s not much on offer in the pie department if you’re a vegetarian. One Salient staffer, who is a carnivore trying to go without meat for 100 days, sampled the Tulsi vege curry pie. He ate it all. This is a good sign. However, I’m fairly sure he’d have preferred the Mrs Macs chilli beef and cheese.
Mrs Macs Chilli Beef and Cheese 5/10
This was surprisingly good. And you could actually taste the chilli. There was also cheese in it. Quite a bit of cheese. It’s good when the ingredients they say on the packet are actually in the pie.
Goodtime Mince and Cheese 1/10
This pie looked like it had been in the oven just a little too long. The pastry on top was brown, almost burnt. It was quite hard to cut into. When I did, I couldn’t see any cheese. I like cheese. I like cheese a lot. And there wasn’t any. When a bite was taken, things didn’t fare much better. Most of the pie was placed in the rubbish bin. Not such a good time.
Tulsi Butter Chicken Pie 4/10
Edible, but the butter chicken aspect of the pie was pretty darn sweet. Good flaky pastry. One Salienteer suspects that their tastebuds may have been addled by consuming the chilli beef pie prior to sampling this one, impacting on the subsequent rating of this pie.
Hub Gourmet Lamb, Rosemary and Kumara Pie 8/10
The rosemary was definitely there. Definitely. The lamb was definitely lamb, but it was perhaps a little chewy. The pastry was spot on. Definitely. Definitely a good pie. “It’s not like it’s going to make you vomit at the sight of it.” Kia ora, kia ora.
Mrs Macs Pepper Steak Pie 1/10
The pastry was like a shell. A thick shell. Like a clam. Once you managed to get a knife through the clam shell, inside there was huge chunks of steak. It was unfortunate that a bit of steak sort of fell out of the shell onto the brown paper bag, in a manner that reminded one Salienteer of a poo. A piece of steak was then spat into the bin. No more was eaten.
Hub Gourmet Kumara and Cashew Pie 9/10
Wow. A vegetarian pie tops Salient’s ratings. Has the universe imploded yet? Are you still there? Hello? All you vegetarians out there, rejoice. At last, you can do the drunk stumble home down Cuba, with a pie in hand for extra class. The cashews are crisp, the kumara is flavoursome, and our pie eater didn’t detect an obvious golf ball of fat. Hor-fucking-rah. Go forth, herbivores, and eat pies!