Posts Tagged ‘pies’


Arrowtown Bakery – Brilliant Meat Pies

As far as drunk and hangover foods go, the meat pie is one of the brilliant, can’t go wrong sort of selections. It’s beauty is in it’s ubiquity, it’s always available, it’s cheap, easy and as greasy as you like. But, not all pies were created equal, a frozen supermarket pie microwaved is always inferior to the same pie oven-cooked and at the top of this pyramid of brilliance are bakeries. Not just any old chain of bakery though, the sort that claim they have world class pies, the sort that have a 4 page pie menu and the sort that people drive from miles around just “for a pie”.

Arrowtown Bakery is one of these places, now they don’t make the outrageous claims of being world famous and the bit about the 4 page pie menu was a bit of an embellishment but people really do drive from miles around to get the pies. Now, let me assure you, they don’t dissapoint. The menu consists of a heap of different chicken pies; spicy chicken; cream of chicken; chicken and cheese and plain old chicken. They also have your normal staple of mince, steak, steak and onion and steak and cheese along with a couple of not so run of the mill – bolognaise and lamb and mint. Lamb is up there with my 4 favourite meats and it lends itself perfectly to being low cooked, roasted or baked. Needless to say I was heartily impressed by a lamb pie.

Not only are the fillings brilliant but that’s not all there is to a pie, the other ingredient is pastry and it doesn’t fail to impress here either. The pastry literally melts in your mouth, the top is crisp nut not tough and the pie itself holds itself together. This in itself is part of the genius, there is nother better than not having to worry about mince down your front when you are hoeing into your hangover cure.

All in all these parcels of oven-baked pastry-laden meat are amazing. If you are in the Wakatipu, hangover or no, the 15 minute drive to Arrowtown is well worth the effort.