As you drive up, or down, the highway there are billboards everywhere advertising Heatherbrae’s Pies so you think these pies must be something you have to try!
They advertise that they’re both Premium Pies and Award Winning, and when you walk in you can see a bunch of plaques on the wall showing their various awards. I wish I had read both what the awards were for, and who it is that is handing out awards for these pies as I’m pretty sure they need their award giving credentials revoked.
These are certainly nowhere near the worst pie ever but I just don’t think they deserve the hype that my Dad gives them.
I think a good pie shop is best judged on their standard Meat pie, others may be the ones you recommend to people in the end but I’m the type of person that likes to order their standard pie first and see how well they do that. So this is what I had.
I’m no marketing guy but the first thing I didn’t like was the name of it “Steak Mince”, steak is what I want in a pie but mince is not a word that excites me. It brings to mind all the cheap leftover bits of meat minced together, not the quality steak pieces. Even if it is quality meat I just think that the word mince devalues it… maybe that’s just me though.
The next thing I’m not a big fan of, and this may be a silly one, but it was a square pie. Memories from earlier in life tell me that you can get both good and bad round pies, but you never get a good square pie!! They are always the cheapest and worst pies.
But, at this stage I’m still going in with an open mind, hoping to be pleasantly surprised. I had been here before but that was a while ago and I wanted to try to go in fresh and not prejudging them.
One of the things the billboards advertises is “Drive Thru Available” this pie though is not one you can eat on the move. Before I was halfway through it had already fallen into a heap on the paper bag it came in. Incidentally when I ordered the woman serving me asked if I wanted a plate, which I declined, but maybe this is why she offered.
The bottom pie pastry wasn’t thick enough and therefore made it structurally unsound to carry the weight of the contents spread across a square base. By the end it had fallen apart so badly I was just eating meat filling off the paper bag… and my fingers before it burnt them.
The filling wasn’t too bad for a mince filling, it did have a slight tang to it that I didn’t appreciate but otherwise was mostly fine. The top pastry was the best bit of the pie, though having said this it tasted like it was actually mass produced frozen puff pastry. Which I have to admit tasted nice, but just not really what I want from an award winning pie shop.
So my conclusion is that this pie is ok for the traveller who is hungry, passing by, and has time to eat in, but it’s not one that you’d really go out of your way for or eat on the run.
I give it 2.5 frozen pies out of 5.
Heatherbrae’s Pies
02 4987 5561
www.heatherbraespies.com.au
cnr Masonite Rd & Pacific Highway Heatherbrae NSW 2324
