Venue: The Old Wellington Inn, 4 Cathedral Gates, Manchester. M3 1SW
Date: 4th May 2017
Pie: Chicken, Chorizo & Cider Pie
Rating: 8.0
The Wellington Inn is situated in the heart of Manchester and on a fine sunny day or evening is a fine place to sample a selection of Real Ale and of has a Speciality Menu dedicated to Pies. The Menu varies from time to time but some of the Pies remain a permanent fixture due to their popularity. The pie I sampled on my last list to the selling to was a pastry encased Chicken, Chorizo & Cider Pie with a base of short crust pastry and with a puff pastry lid. The pie came served on a plate with seasonal green vegetables, twice cooked chips and a small boat of gravy.
The pie itself was well cooked, the pastry not too hard and cut easily with a knife and fork, the puff pastry of the lid was well secured to the short crust pastry sides so none of the filling and juices had spilled over and spoiled the look of the pie, indeed it did look very tempting. Once I cut into the pie itself I could see there were plenty of chunks of Chicken breast but not much evidence of Chorizo, just a few very small cubes no more than a two or three at most millimetres is size. The Cider sauce within the pie was of a creamy texture with a very slight hint of Cider and a very very slight flavour of Chorizo. The flavours were a little too delicate for me, I would have liked a little more intensity and although if taken too far would have overpowered the flavour of the Chicken, the flavour of the filling was a long way from being overpowering.
One thing that did disappoint was the fact that the gravy served with the pie was your standard, chip shop, beef-ish flavoured gravy which seems like a strange thing to do when the filling within the pie was based on cider, why not serve with a boat of chicken and cider flavoured gravy I thought, but hey… I’m reviewing the Pie not the Gravy so I guess I’ll just have to get over it.
Overall I would say the Chicken, Chorizo & Cider pie was a pleasant eat. If you were trying to get your children (or your best friend who lives off Holland’s Pies…. we all have one) to try something a little more exotic then this may be a good place to start as the flavours were very subtle, but I personally was left a little disappointed that something that could have been totally taste bud tickling turned out to be just….. well….. nice.
HF.
