I have returned to the inner northern suburbs of Brisbane for this week’s pie test and the Rainforest Bakery in Everton Hills.  With a large gluten free offering coupled with the pie area of the bakery looking like an afterthought I confess I didn’t have high expectations and that was lucky because this pie was not all that good.

Again I have found myself ordering a plain steak pie as there was no plain mince pie available at the Rainforest Bakery.  

Rainforest Bakery Steak Pie (photo by the author)

Here is how I rated this Pie:

Taste

My immediate thought on the first bite of this pie was that it was just a bit bland.  It definitely did not tantalise the taste buds.

Meat and Gravy 

For a pie advertised as a steak pie there was a key element missing: the steak.  Whilst there was a large amount of gravy it completely overpowered the very small amount of meat in this pie.  It was actually more like a mince pie but with a very small amount of mince rather than a steak pie! 

Pastry

The first hint that the pastry in the Rainforest Bakery pie might not be good was the fact that the pie was served in its silver tray.  Soft on the bottom and a little bit undercooked the pastry here did not hit the mark. 

Size

I felt the Rainforest Bakery pie was on the smaller side of what I would expect for a Bakery pie. This makes me get back to my original impression which was that this pie had not been made on site and rather had been mass produced somewhere else.

Temperature 

The temperature of this pie was luke warm at absolute best.  I need to place a small caveat here which is this: I did drive home to eat this pie BUT I am certain that the 3 minute drive home did not massively impact on its temperature. 

Price

This pie was priced at $4.20.

The Final Word

The Rainforest Bakery is an institution of the inner northern suburbs and does a roaring trade for its gluten free products and breads which I know from personal experience to be excellent.  Unfortunately that level of excellence was not matched by its plain steak pie.  It did not really hit the mark on the metrics I use to rate a pie and all in all had the feel of being a mass produced offering.  

PostScript 

Rainforest Bakery is on Camelia Ave, Everton Hills. 

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