Today seems like a perfect day for pie and mash! I’ve been to this place three times now, and I’m really digging it. Beef & onion pie, mashed potatoes, and the parsley sauce, makes for a really hearty meal. Also tried a curry lamb version what also very tasty. They seem to always have an “special” flavor of the day available.
It is purportedly the first traditional English pie shop in the U.S. I have no idea if that’s accurate, but I’m glad it is here. I cross posted in the general section to see if anyone had see one elsewhere.
After a friend visited me here in England this summer, she found a company in Buffalo that mail orders
pork pies and other British specialties. I’ve sent some gifts to my kids because the products look
pretty authentic to me who now lives over here in the UK. Maybe I will have to come judge my hometown, new pie and mash
place.
I ate at Tubby Isaac’s in London a decade or so ago. Sadly it’s gone now because eels are scarce and no longer cheap. The meat is like shark. White, firm and meaty.
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
5
Interesting that he calls his place Stargazy, yet doesnt sell Stargazy Pie.
FWIW, Manze’s in London (three branches) offer eels (stewed or jellied) as well as the traditional meat pie, mash and liquor. Last time I was in the area (a couple of years back), there was a van selling jellied eels next to Aldgate East tube station.
He does offer the true stargazy pie, as a random special or pre-order item. My guess would be that we are not that ready for true English cuisine for it to be a regular item .
I’ll have to check this out and compare it to Goddard’s in London, the only English pie shop I know. I will confess that I have never gotten the eels, though.
The few English people I know, all agree, they don’t eat the eels.
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
9
It’s really always a foodstuff associated with the London area. I’ve never seen them in a fishmongers near me and only seen them on a couple of occasions on restaurant menus. From memory, those couple of occasions have involved smoked eel. They’ve possibly been imported - it was always something my partner would bring back as a present for me from the Netherlands. That said, I see that one smokehouse, fairly near to me in the northwest of England, is now doing them - they usually sell at my local farmers market which is on this Sunday, so I’ll look out for it. http://www.lancastersmokehouse.co.uk/smoked-eel-fillet , Google turns up a number of other smokehouses
As a Londoner who’s been to a fair few pie and mash shops I’ve only had them once. I like eels but prefer them smoked or grilled as they do in Japanese restaurants. Some people I know do eat them but always with a pie rather than on their own.
