Lord of the Pies

Walking into Stockport town centre a little shop with a catchy name caught my eye and I couldn't help but take a quick look inside.

A quick search on the internet for "Lord of the Pies" brought up their two social media links which were full of rave reviews and mentions of their numerous award winning pies. An ideal stop for a lunch time meat then!

The little shop with its clean white and grey appearance outside is a quaint little cafe inside with a small number of timber tables and benches for eating in, or all food is available to take away. The wall to the right has an impressive collection of awards hung on the wall, but does the food live up to these awards?

Lord of the Pies

Interior

Awards

To the back is a small kitchen which looked to be being kept very busy on a Friday-pieday!
The counter displays freshly bagged uncooked pies ready to take away, while to the side there's a hot oven with only a small number of ready to eat pies in it. As they offer cooked pies all day long it proves that the pies aren't all left pre-cooked under a heat lamp all day and that they're continually cooking fresh pies through the day. So the pie you buy probably won't have been out of the oven long.

Uncooked pies

Cooked pies

They have quite a selection of traditional pie flavours each with their individual touch on the recipes. They don't have a set menu online as I presume they often change the flavours available, however to get some idea, there's a link to their September menu at the end of this memoir.
With the pies comes the offering of various traditional side servings such as mashed potato (traditional, cheesy or mustard), mushy peas, braised red cabbage, or red wine gravy.

As well as meat pies and all the sides, they also offer pork pies, sausage rolls, soup of the days and various sweet desserts.

It took some time to decide due to the delicious choice but I opted for the beef and blue cheese pie and a sausage roll (just to compare following the recent sausage roll review in "Butcher the Blog Part 1" here: Meat Memoirs; Butcher the Blog Part 1

The sausage roll was the first thing unwrapped as it didn't feel as hot as the pie. Opening the paper bag exposed a thin but long, broken crusted sausage roll, with a light pink meat inside.
The pastry was seasoned with herbs and very crunchy, no grease at all in these sausage rolls.

Sausage Roll (£1.50)

Taking a bite the flaking pastry made it impossible to avoid making a mess. The soft pork meat inside was obviously of a high quality with no gristle or obvious fatty chunks making up the meat.

Inside the sausage roll

Then it was onto the pie. A very generous size for what is expected to be a top quality pie based on the certificates and awards. Outside the pie pastry and crust is a perfect golden colour with a sprinkling of crumbs and herbs.

Beef & Blue Cheese Pie (£3.25 - takeout / £3.90 eat in)

Cutting open the pie, the thick gravy inside spills out along with the meat suspended within it. And it's a lot of meat! It's instantly obvious that there's a lot more meat in this pie compare to some famous branded pies.

Inside the Beef & Blue pie

Take a bite and the pastry taste is the first taste on the tongue. The herbs and crumbs almost make it taste like a seasoned pizza crust, yet it's crumbly pastry rather than a soft bread. The smooth gravy inside holds the juicy beef which is full of flavour and very well cooked. Like the sausage roll, there's no gristle or chewy meat to be found within the whole pie. Just juicy, mouth watering meat throughout.
The blacksticks blue cheese within these beef and blue pies isn't instantly obvious, but then every now and again you get a hit of it on the pallet. As I ate the pie I thought it could do with a little more blue cheese flavour, but once I'd finished it my mouth was left with the taste of blue cheese more than anything else. This may or may not be the intention of the recipe used to make these pies but it works as it means the cheese doesn't overpower the other flavours of the pie, in particular the juicy meat and gravy, yet your still offered the taste of the cheese.

Conclusion

Lord of the Pies certainly lives up to it's name! Really well seasoned pastries surrounding high quality meats and gravies. These pies are very moreish! If you're a fan of pies then I'd definitely suggest that you give Lord of the Pies a try. Their awards seem well deserved from this first experience! Now to make pieday-Friday a regular thing to sample more of the menu.

Also a comment regarding the exceptionally friendly customer service received within the shop on Friday. The staff were very welcoming and more than happy for me to take a few photos for the meat memoirs. All adds to the great experience received from this small shop.

Here is the September menu which was available at the time of this memoir being written:
Lord of the Pies Menu (September 2014)


Lord of the Pies on Facebook

@LordofthePiesGB


Meat Rating: 10/10 (the first 10 for the Meat Memoirs. Congratulations Lord of the Pies!)

Money for Meat: Paid in Full

Butcher the Blog (Part 1)

Alpes the Butchers

Rather than the usual restaurant review, this weeks memoirs come from a couple of local butchers shops in the town where I grew up, Clitheroe. 

The first sells not only quality meat, but cooked foods, sandwiches, cooked breakfasts, cooked meats, fresh pizzas, ready to cook BBQ foods and the best sausage roll I've eaten to date.

What started out as a small corner butcher shop has expanded over the past few years in every direction possible. They now have a kitchen upstairs for cooking meats, breakfasts and sandwiches, and they expanded into the neighbouring property to further increase their sales floor area. They've made the most of this space too. 

Enter into the shop and it's a U-shaped, clean brushed steel and brass refrigerating unit displaying a huge selection of fresh meats, as well as also various seasoned meats, cooked pies, pizzas & fresh vegetables. There's probably more on offer in here than a local supermarket when it comes to meat produce. 

On the other side of the displays you'll find a small army of butchers kept busy by the constant stream of customers. It makes you wonder how they coped in the smaller premises. 

Walk down one side of the display and in the corner you'll see the heated cooked meat display. If the raw meat didn't get your taste buds tingling, the look and smell of these cooked chickens, pies and sausages rolls will!

Cooked meat displays

It's the sausage rolls that are the main attraction and focus of this memoir. On the top shelf, right under the heat lamps they sit, being kept at a steady too-hot-to-eat temperature. Arrive early enough in the morning and there will be a number of trays full, hot and ready to eat. Arrive later in the day, or even later in the morning at a weekend, and you'll often be met with disappointment when you're told that they're all sold out of sausage rolls. 

A tray of sausage rolls - £1.60 each

When your wait is finally over and you reach the front of the queue, ask the butcher for a sausage roll and you'll be taken aback by the money he asks for in return, £1.60. That's all!
Compare that to a famous high street baker/pasty maker we all know, and it's less than the price of 2 of their sausage rolls (which are mostly pastry and very little meat - if you can call that filling they put in them "meat")
In return for your £1.60 you'll be handed a hot, foil wrapped bundle of meaty goodness. 
Wrapping hot, take out food like this is great as it means that the food can stay hot or warm for you if you wish to eat it later in the day. Great if you're taking it with you on a trip somewhere.  

Foil wrapped

Start unwrapping the silver coat and you'll finally see it up close. The pastry to the underside of the sausage roll is slightly greasy where it was sat on the hot tray, but it's crumbly, flaky pastry on top and around the meat. At either end, the meat is crispy and dark where it's been cooked. Although the ends may not look the best, the crispy cooked juices taste amazing at the either end. 

Unwrapped with crisp flaky pastry

The singed sweet end of the sausage roll

Once you decide how you're going to tackle this beyond normal sized sausage roll, you'll bite through the flaky pastry while you're tongue gets a licking of the greasy, soft underside. Then you'll discover that the pastry isn't as thick as you first imagined it would be, and instead this is made of a lot of meat. Then you'll realise that this isn't the same imitation meat you get in your high street pastry maker sausage roll. This roll of pastry is full of high quality, juicy, perfectly cooked meat! 

A huge meat to pastry ratio

Just to try give a scale of the size of this sausage roll

 
Conclusion

As a butcher, Alpes is a successful establishment, selling high quality local meat. Their breakfasts, sandwiches and pies are taste fantastic. Some of their barbecue meats are very handy and really well seasoned, great for those who just want some quick things to throw on a BBQ.  Their sausage rolls have got to be their highlight though. If anyone can find sausage rolls which contain this much meat, and are of this size then please contact me, as I need to see if it's truly possible!
If you just want a quick breakfast, a better quality hangover cure, or a hot, ready to eat snack it's the one stop shop in Clitheroe. 
Is it the best butcher in town though? May be Part 2 of "Butcher the blog" will answer that question in the coming week. 

As Alpes doesn't have any social media pages I'll bring attention to their address at the bottom of the page should you wish to find them to try for yourself.  


Meat rating: 6/10

Money for meat: Paid in Full