It's not so much that I miss Australian meat pies. I miss the idea of Australian meat pies. I live in New York City, which has everything, so there are actually a few places here where I can go and eat an Australian meat pie, but I still miss meat pies.
You see, when I lived in Australia, meat pies were not the kind of thing you went to a restaurant or bar to eat. They weren't the kind of thing you ate off a plate. True, gourmet meat pies are on the bar and pub menus in Australia now, but I was abroad for the great meat pie renaissance down under that put them there. So, to my mind, meat pies are to be eaten at the football (not that you would ever catch me at the football), or grabbed from the 7-11 when you're feeling a bit peckish (not that you'd catch me eating a 7-11 meat pie), or scarfed down late at night after a nightclub session (not that you would catch me at a nightclub, not these days).
I guess that what I've really missed is the ready availability of meat pies. Meat pies that don't require a commitment to a venue, to a plate, to a knife and fork, but are just there when you want them. Meat pies that taste as they did in my childhood, or rather, that taste as they did in my childhood, filtered by my spoilt tastebuds and a romanticized sense of nostalgia, which, of course means they have to taste a hell of lot better than they ever did to taste the "same".
Now, at last, I have found what I've been missing. At a proper Aussie pie shop, Dub Pies, in Brooklyn. And I am happy. Okay, that's kind of a lie. I am happy but I'd already found a proper Aussie pie shop, Tuck Shop, in the East Village. But I like the traditional, basic, meat pie at the Brooklyn joint better. Of course, meat pies cost a lot more now than I remember ($4.75 for a steak mince pie, $3 for a sausage roll), but that's cheaper than most New York sandwiches.
Both these pie shops are capable of making a flat white, which is something Starbucks will never be able to do.
DUB Pies NYC
(Down Under Bakery)
198 Columbia Street (Btw Sackett and Degraw)
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Phone: 646.202.9412
Click here to go to website.
NB They also serve lamingtons, an Aussie jam-filled sponge coated in chocolate and coconut--another thing that I ate as a child in Australia and didn't much like but now has nostalgic value. Oh and they serve a spirulina smoothie--for some reason I could never understand spirulina is big in New Zealand--and it's gross.
TUCK SHOP
250 W 49th Street (btw Broadway & 8th Ave)
New York, NY 10019
(212) 757-8481
Click here to go to website.
NB Both these places serve a pie floater. If you don't know what that is you will have to find out for yourself. The Tuck Shop has pie specials and more special pies than DUB pies. You can also get lamingtons and vanilla slices at the Tuck Shop, and a vegemite sandwich, if you really must.
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