Pies

On Friday Matthew needed a pie. It was the end of a long, hard week ( in the Australian sense) and nothing would ease him into the weekend better than a nice plate of pie and chips, with or without mushy peas and gravy. Having experienced pie-urges myself, I understood and was happy to accompany him on a pie mission into town.

Brisbane, we reasoned, is a growing cosmopolitan city, liberated of its ‘banana bending’ roots and thronging with stylish restaurants and nightspots, as any guide book will tell you. The hip young things of Brisbane must eat pies, we thought, and set off in search of our meal.

Our first port of call was South Bank, the closest area to our flat and full of junk food purveyors. Beautifully landscaped with lawns, rainforest and a bougainvillea-covered arbour, South Bank is a tourist Mecca, complete with a weekend tat market and a fake beach, which is usually crammed with families barbequing and backpackers eagerly roasting themselves from ‘bronzed’ to ‘shedding and patchy’. South Bank is also home to bags of burger bars and numerous over-priced and flashy eateries, one of which was bound to sell pies – or so we thought. We wandered down through the arbour, amid the markets and, although we managed to successfully not buy a Kangaroo-scrotum lighter, or a spray-on tattoo, we weren’t so lucky with a pie shop.

Our pie-potentials exhausted in South Bank, we decided to walk along to the next suburb, West End. A far earthier and colourful suburb, West End is home to a lot of trendy eco types, a variety of ethnic populations and quite a few tramps. It is also filled with great little restaurants and bars which are cheaper and much nicer than the fare of South Bank.

Our favourite place to eat in West End is a Vietnamese place which is run by a really enthusiastic and tiny lady. It’s BYO ( Bring your own) and is certainly no-frills, but the food is delicious and a meal for 2 will usually cost about $15 ( or £6).

But tonight Vietnamese was definitely not on the menu, tonight we needed pie and chips and we would let no one stand in our way. We started on the left-hand side of the street and started scouring menus for the offer of meat in pastry, served with chips and optional peas and gravy. The first few were a bit trendy. Pie and chips, had it featured on the menu, would have probably been served with a ‘melange’ or ‘trio’ of seasonal vegetables and gravy, dumped for a ‘jus’. At the next place, the menu looked good, we were offered a seat in the garden and the opportunity to listen to a ‘great band’ which under further interrogation played Coldplay songs. But, no pie, we moved on.

Three or four Greek, Mediterranean, Italian and Australian restaurants later and the closest we had come was a Spanakopita, which didn’t count apparently. Eventually after over an hour of searching, the rumbling of our bellies overwhelmed our drive and our quest was over, we settled for fish and chips. Disheartened and incredulous, we ate our fish and chips and discussed the wildly apparent gaping hole in the gastronomy of South Brisbane.

I haven’t looked yet, but I reckon that ‘Pie maker’ will feature on the Australian ‘Skills in Demand’ list – maybe someone should tell the grumpy teenagers in the Banbury Cornish Pasty Shop?