My friend Aaron and I decided to try out Jocelyn’s Provisions to road test their meat pies and sausage rolls. For those who don’t know of Jocelyn’s, it’s located in Fortitude Valley in Shop 8, Centro on James off Dogget Street tucked in amongst several stores. People swear by their sweet goods and the few times I’ve been there they’ve been packed out which got me thinking that perhaps the great pie search should veer in that direction. We got in just before lunchtime and asked what was available. I ordered the lamb and rosemary pie-$7.60 (yes it’s expensive but most artisan foods made with quality products are) and the sausage roll-$4.90.
Aaron was told there were no more duck pies so he went with the chicken and vegetable-$7.60 and a spiced beef gozleme-~$5.90, a Turkish pastry rolled out and filled with a stuffing, sealed and cooked flat. Sort of like a stuffed naan bread.
There’s no seating area there so we took off to New Farm Park to munch on our wares.
The pie was extremely hot so I changed tactic and went for the sausage roll first. I cut the sausage roll in half to share with Aaron and also to get a good idea of it’s cross section.. The pastry was nice and flaky however one look at the meat content and I was already skeptical. The best sausage rolls I’ve ever had always looked like they contained ground chunks of minced beef. This resembled the mass produced meat puree associated with such non-delicacies as hotdog franks and cheerios, not to mention the large separation of meat from pastry. Still it’s almost all about the taste for me so I tucked in.
What a let down. It had the texture of cheap sausage meat which was quite dry. The flavour was ok but nothing special with the pastry being it’s only redeeming feature.
I’d give it 3/10. I will definitely NOT be going back for one of these especially at that price. Any effort putting in quality ingredients was lost the moment they compressed it into that single texture, mono-flavour meat type substance.
I decided to start on the lamb pie which had cooled down enough. On the outside it looked good. The top was flaky and firm. It looked nice with the sprig of rosemary shoved into the top.
I pushed a section of the foil tray down to reveal the base. Firstly for investigative purposes and secondly because this is probably one of the best ways to access and eat a pie without it ending up all over you. It also showed the base to be very oily as I pushed it with my thumb. I know this often happens with pies especially if they’ve been sitting in the warming oven for a while. I cracked the top and broke off a small piece of pasty to taste on its own.
Now I know Jocelyn’s Provisions specialises in sweet patisseries but that is no reason to put sugar into everything. Especially the pastry of a meat pie! If I’d had my eyes closed I’d swear I was about to ingest a dessert pie. The pastry was sweet and flaky (I took a bit off the upper crust for my test piece). This wasn’t a good start to the taste test.
As I always do, I flipped the lid to check out the contents inside and to release some of the heat that was still lurking around waiting to destroy my mouth.
This looked very promising. Large chunks of lamb in a tomato based stew/gravy. It wasn’t congealed with cornflour as many pie fillings are and I was eager to hoe in, so I did.
Despite it’s looks the filling lacked the flavour that I thought it was going to deliver. It was quite tasty and I’ve made similar stews at home, however combined with the sweet pastry it was a bit of a let down. Had the stew base been a little richer and the pastry not sweet I think this pie could have been fantastic. Alas a pie is the sum of all it’s parts and this combination just didn’t work. Me not having a sweet tooth and the pastry being what it was probably didn’t help. I’d say maybe give this a go as it may appeal to you but it just didn’t tick the boxes for me.
I tried a bit of Aaron’s chicken and vegetable pie and it was extremely bland. Think plain chicken soup boiled with some vegetables and that’s what it was. I searched for a hint of pepper or some herbal flavour in the filling but combined with the starchy chunks of potato inside, it wasn’t bringing anything to the taste buds.
Another disappointment in the great pie search.
Finally we hooked into the gozleme.
Now you’re probably waiting for me to tear this apart too. But the only tearing I’d do to this is what was required to stuff it in my mouth. This was a seriously tasty combination of firm outer dough housing a delicious well balanced blend of beef mince, onions and spices, the main one being cumin from my taste bud analysis! The only thing it needed was to have been warmed through. It was displayed on a non heated glass cabinet and I didn’t think to ask, nor was it offered to heat it up which is a shame as the fantastic flavours would have been released with heat.
This was a great introduction for me into gozleme world.
Jocelyn’s Provisions make great cakes and sweets as is evident from the continuous stream of people who go there. I highly recommend going there and checking it out as there’s going to be something there that will appeal to you. This review was predominantly on their pies and sausage rolls and you have to bear in mind that I’m decidedly picky in the Great Pie Search as I’m looking for something that stands out above and beyond the other pie and sausage roll benchmarks I’ve eaten.
