I confess that the French Patisserie at Toowong was my fourth choice for today’s Pie testing albeit that was not for any negative reason.  Rather I have had a number of bakeries in the Brisbane western suburbs recommended to me.  Unfortunately the three shops that went before this one either were out of plain mince / beef pies today or were shut.  

I say unfortunately for two reasons:

  1. I am unlikely to get back to those venues again.
  2. The plain beef (as it was on the menu card) pie at French Patisserie was not all that good.
Plain Beef Pie at French Patisserie, Toowong (photo by the author)

Here is how I rated this Pie:

Taste

One of the positives of the pie from French Patisserie was that it did taste nice.  It was a little on the bland side if I had to be picky about it but all in all I was satisfied with this Pie from this perspective.

Mince and Gravy

Another of the positives in what was not a great Pie was the meat and gravy content of the French Patisserie offering.  There was a good amount of meat in the pie, it was well complimented by the gravy and the mix was consistent throughout the pie.

Pastry

This is where things started to go bad for the French Patisserie plain beef pie. By any measure the pastry on this Pie was not good.  It was soft in the bottom and the pie started to break apart in my hand from the secon bite. More troublesome the pastry tasted unusual.  The best I can describe it would be “plasticy”.  Strangely the top of the pie was over cooked and tasted a little burnt.

Size

This Pie was on the smaller side size wise which makes the poor pastry and the comment I am about to make about its temperature all the more incongruous. 

Temperature

I concede that the timing of my purchase was late in the morning at 11:10am however that is no reason for the pie I tested be cold.  And cold it was!!! If I was being extremely generous I might say the temperature was on the cool side of lukewarm but even that is a stretch.

Price $4.95

The Final Word

The plain beef pie at the French Patisserie in Toowong did get some things right: it tasted good and the meat / gravy content was also good.  However there was much wrong with this Pie with the pastry sub par at best and the pie only lukewarm if I am being more generous than I have ever been. Also, for what you get, it is also a touch on the expensive side.  

Postscript 

If you want to try out the pie at French Patisserie (and potentially prove me wrong) it is in Morley Street, Toowong. 

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