Venue: The Bakery, 127 Briscoe Lane, Newton Heath, Manchester, M40 2TP
Date: 8th March 2018
Pie: Cheese & Onion
Pie Temperature: Hot
Rating: 7.5
The Bakery on Briscoe Lane in Newton Heath, just outside of Manchester is run by Mr & Mrs Byrnes who used to have two bakeries in the area but now lease one out to another baker to run. My visit to this particular bakery has been a long long time coming due to the old grey matter not functioning as well as it used to. I’ve found myself driving past the bakery and down Briscoe Lane a multitude of times only to remember, muttering expletives under my breath, that it’s there and that I should have stopped and popped in to sample a pie. Finally today, I remembered a couple of hundred yards before I passed by and so I pulled onto the forecourt with a satisfied grin on my face because although my memory is failing I still don’t go by the name of “Dory”.
On offer today fresh out of the oven were Steak & Kidney, Meat & Potato, Pork, Cheese & Onion, Meat, Chicken & Mushroom, and very curiously, something I instantly recognised, Meat & Potato Pie from the Crusty Cob Bakery a few miles down the road. I’m wondering now if the “other bakery” is indeed the Crusty Cob and due to the popularity of the Crusty Cob pies part of the deal on the lease was to sell some of their fayre. A requirement for further Pie Geek investigations needed I think!
As I’ve been focussing on meat filled pies recently I decided to buy a Cheese & Onion Pie. The pie came in quite a deep tin foil dish, about 4cms deep and 10cms across, so a good sized pie. The pastry pie itself looked slightly scorched on top, but in the eating it certainly didn’t taste it and the rest of the pie when removed from the tin looked a lovely golden colour and stood up well by itself, it didn’t just collapse into a cheese and pastry mush. Cutting and biting into the pie was pleasurable and the filling was sufficiently thick as to not run out and down your chin and shirt. The pastry in fact was really quite nice and the slight scorching I mentioned early added a little bit of a crunchy texture to a mouthful and was quite enjoyable.
There was plenty of filling, very little air gap, just at the edges as you can see from the photos, and although it was tasty and seasoned well I couldn’t discern any chunks of cheese and only a few slivers of onion. Now, some people like their C&O fillings to be a smooth melted creamy cheese like affair, but I like mine to have more texture, so although as I said it was a tasty pie, it wasn’t to my particular taste. It was certainly better than the pies that you can buy from the franchised and big name bakeries, much better in fact, but aesthetically it did look a little scorched, so it wouldn’t hit my Top 10 List. Like I say, it’s all down to personal preference.
Would I go back to The Bakery and try another of their pies? Absolutely yes. While I was there I took a fancy to the look of their Marquise shaped Steak & Kidney pies. All I have to do now is to be less like Dory.
HF.
