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Pie pleasure at Queenstown Public House
A taste of New Zealand brings back happy memories
Happy Hour plate costs $10. Comes with fat fries, but it’s the pie that counts.
Video:
TIN FORK: The pie of the beholder at Queenstown Pies
Just back from New Zealand, where I went crazy…on meat pies. (They’re called “pot pies” back here.) If there’s a national dish Down Under, pies are it, Comfort food central. Kiwis are crazy for them. Meat pies, ground beef and cheese pies, veggie pies, kumera (sweet potato) pies, butter chicken pies, wild venison pies, paua (abalone) pies, mutton pies — all served up hot with mashed potatoes and drowned in Worcestershire sauce, natch. Now that I’m back on this side of the pond, I find myself fantasizing over pies with pastry so flaky, you’d think you were eating baklava, palmiers, apple strudels. Yum! Paperweight flyaway pastry! But also crunchy. Oh man. Must see some doctor about these flashbacks.
They’re hitting me now, as I walk through Little Italy. What the heck? “Isn’t there a Kiwi pub hereabouts?” I ask the four lions spouting from their fountain at the top of Little Italy’s walk-through street. They keep silent, but then I look across Columbia to — oh yeah: that lovely old 1904 house. A Kiwi pub! The Queenstown. It used to be Democratic Party headquarters, back when Lori Saldaña was starting her climb up the political ladder. She had an office in there somewhere. Now there’s a big garden on the corner scattered with tables, and fires you can huddle around, lights winking from inside. And a sign: “Queenstown.”
Kiwi greeting (“Hi! Long life!”) at entrance to the Queenstown Public House.
The actual town of Queenstown is perched up in the mountains of New Zealand’s South Island, west of where I’ve been living these past six months with the lovely Diane. We were about 100 miles from that great resort. The best for skiing, dude-ranching, bungee-jumping, and oh yes, the Fergburger, maybe the most famous burger south of the equator.
The Fergburger notwithstanding, New Zealand has been about the pies for me since childhood. Savory mince pies were the thing, even though our mom often brought home steak and kidney pies (and I hated kidney), or smoked fish (and I hated smoked fish), or (easier to take) bacon and egg. Or more than anything, the chicken and mushroom pies. Mom would slam some ripped-from the-garden lettuce leaves down, scatter peanuts on top, plus a couple of olives, and the rest was down to the pie. “Be careful. It’s hot inside!” she’d say as we lifted the pastry lid and unleashed a cloud of steam.
So here I am crossing into this — have to say — dee-lightful garden, just up from Piazza Della Famiglia. “Happy hour?” I ask this gal skipping down the stairs from the house. She’s carrying two plates. Man. Hope she doesn’t trip. When she comes back, she ushers me to a li’l table at the top of the stairs, which looks out across to the fire museum’s Pioneer Hook and Ladder Company. I try again: “Uh, do you have New Zealand pies in happy hour?”
She finds a happy hour menu. First thing you notice on the title page is that — nice touch — “Public House” is written upside down, with an upside-down sheep below. “You’ve got fifteen minutes,” she says. “Let’s…see. Oh yes. Our veggie pie is on happy hour. No meat pies. Sorry. But the veggie pie has very good flavors. I eat it all the time.”
There it is: “Veggie pie and chips,” part of the happy hour’s $10 section. (They have $9 dishes like slider and skinny fries, burger with a choice of lamb, pork-and-beef, or a Kiwilango — beef, jalapeño and cheese. Back up in the $10 class you can also choose fish and chips, a beet salad, or something called “Cat’s Chili.” Do they have a staffer named “Cat” here?) Whatever, I’m going for the veggie pie, even though that Kiwilango would be it, if only it were a pie.
When Dan, the other server, brings my tray, it makes me happy. OK, it’s a happy hour version of the pie — so, not huge. And it’s a simple pie dotted by black sesame seeds, surrounded by fat fries. But yes, my number one priority, the pastry, is the hoped-for puff pastry, super-crispy-flaky and golden. And number two, the pie may be veggie, but it really does have flavor. Guess that’s curry in there, plus the usual suspects: peas, celery, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, and to sharpen it up, a pot of sweet tomato chutney.
Queenstown’s Down Under menu.
I mean, it’s just a pie, right? This happens a lot: restaurants get a comfort food and dress it up. Give it respect. Discover it again for the first time. But still, this is delish (though I found the thick fries not as tender as I woulda liked). And I do like the pastry-meat combo, even if it is veggie. Now I think about it, I remember I’m eating a really ancient food item: folks have been baking and eating pies like this for just about ever. The ancient Egyptians would use crushed seeds glued into a pastry with honey as a way of enclosing and baking meats. The Greeks followed. Then the Romans had the idea of sticking a pastry lid on top, as a way of keeping things hot, and also of preserving the meat inside. But here’s the other thing I like: seems the word itself, “pie,” comes from…magpies! “Pie” comes from “pica,” meaning beak, “mag” from a noisy, naggy, “maggie” (sorry, all Margarets) person. So the crows’ still-famous habit of picking up every bright thing they see and storing it noisily in their nest gave the idea for the name: a pie as a “pastry box” stuffed with food odds and ends.
So my pie was really good, even at the happy hour size. Next time, I’m going to go check out a Kiwi meat pie business named Auntie Devi’s up in Poway. I’ve heard people say they’re the best. Until then, I’m happy eating humble pie right here.
The Place: Queenstown Public House, 1557 Columbia Street, Little Italy, 619-546-0444
Hours: 11am - 10pm daily (till 11pm, Saturday, Sunday)
Prices: New Zealand meat pie (wagyu, cheddar, puff pastry), $25; lamb skewers, $28; rack of lamb, $39; Kiwilango (burger, organic patty, jalapeno, blue cheese), $23
Happy Hour prices: hummus and pita, $8; slider (with choice of lamb, beef, pork, Kiwilango, or miso), $9; Veggie pie and chips, $10; fish and chips, $10; Cat’s chili, $10; beet salad, $10; veggie pie and chips, $10
Trolleys: Blue, Green Line
Nearest Trolley Stop: County Center/Little Italy
Here's something you might be interested in.
Pie pleasure at Queenstown Public House
A taste of New Zealand brings back happy memories
Pie pleasure at Queenstown Public House
A taste of New Zealand brings back happy memories
Happy Hour plate costs $10. Comes with fat fries, but it’s the pie that counts.
Video:
TIN FORK: The pie of the beholder at Queenstown Pies
Just back from New Zealand, where I went crazy…on meat pies. (They’re called “pot pies” back here.) If there’s a national dish Down Under, pies are it, Comfort food central. Kiwis are crazy for them. Meat pies, ground beef and cheese pies, veggie pies, kumera (sweet potato) pies, butter chicken pies, wild venison pies, paua (abalone) pies, mutton pies — all served up hot with mashed potatoes and drowned in Worcestershire sauce, natch. Now that I’m back on this side of the pond, I find myself fantasizing over pies with pastry so flaky, you’d think you were eating baklava, palmiers, apple strudels. Yum! Paperweight flyaway pastry! But also crunchy. Oh man. Must see some doctor about these flashbacks.
They’re hitting me now, as I walk through Little Italy. What the heck? “Isn’t there a Kiwi pub hereabouts?” I ask the four lions spouting from their fountain at the top of Little Italy’s walk-through street. They keep silent, but then I look across Columbia to — oh yeah: that lovely old 1904 house. A Kiwi pub! The Queenstown. It used to be Democratic Party headquarters, back when Lori Saldaña was starting her climb up the political ladder. She had an office in there somewhere. Now there’s a big garden on the corner scattered with tables, and fires you can huddle around, lights winking from inside. And a sign: “Queenstown.”
Kiwi greeting (“Hi! Long life!”) at entrance to the Queenstown Public House.
The actual town of Queenstown is perched up in the mountains of New Zealand’s South Island, west of where I’ve been living these past six months with the lovely Diane. We were about 100 miles from that great resort. The best for skiing, dude-ranching, bungee-jumping, and oh yes, the Fergburger, maybe the most famous burger south of the equator.
The Fergburger notwithstanding, New Zealand has been about the pies for me since childhood. Savory mince pies were the thing, even though our mom often brought home steak and kidney pies (and I hated kidney), or smoked fish (and I hated smoked fish), or (easier to take) bacon and egg. Or more than anything, the chicken and mushroom pies. Mom would slam some ripped-from the-garden lettuce leaves down, scatter peanuts on top, plus a couple of olives, and the rest was down to the pie. “Be careful. It’s hot inside!” she’d say as we lifted the pastry lid and unleashed a cloud of steam.
So here I am crossing into this — have to say — dee-lightful garden, just up from Piazza Della Famiglia. “Happy hour?” I ask this gal skipping down the stairs from the house. She’s carrying two plates. Man. Hope she doesn’t trip. When she comes back, she ushers me to a li’l table at the top of the stairs, which looks out across to the fire museum’s Pioneer Hook and Ladder Company. I try again: “Uh, do you have New Zealand pies in happy hour?”
She finds a happy hour menu. First thing you notice on the title page is that — nice touch — “Public House” is written upside down, with an upside-down sheep below. “You’ve got fifteen minutes,” she says. “Let’s…see. Oh yes. Our veggie pie is on happy hour. No meat pies. Sorry. But the veggie pie has very good flavors. I eat it all the time.”
There it is: “Veggie pie and chips,” part of the happy hour’s $10 section. (They have $9 dishes like slider and skinny fries, burger with a choice of lamb, pork-and-beef, or a Kiwilango — beef, jalapeño and cheese. Back up in the $10 class you can also choose fish and chips, a beet salad, or something called “Cat’s Chili.” Do they have a staffer named “Cat” here?) Whatever, I’m going for the veggie pie, even though that Kiwilango would be it, if only it were a pie.
When Dan, the other server, brings my tray, it makes me happy. OK, it’s a happy hour version of the pie — so, not huge. And it’s a simple pie dotted by black sesame seeds, surrounded by fat fries. But yes, my number one priority, the pastry, is the hoped-for puff pastry, super-crispy-flaky and golden. And number two, the pie may be veggie, but it really does have flavor. Guess that’s curry in there, plus the usual suspects: peas, celery, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, and to sharpen it up, a pot of sweet tomato chutney.
Queenstown’s Down Under menu.
I mean, it’s just a pie, right? This happens a lot: restaurants get a comfort food and dress it up. Give it respect. Discover it again for the first time. But still, this is delish (though I found the thick fries not as tender as I woulda liked). And I do like the pastry-meat combo, even if it is veggie. Now I think about it, I remember I’m eating a really ancient food item: folks have been baking and eating pies like this for just about ever. The ancient Egyptians would use crushed seeds glued into a pastry with honey as a way of enclosing and baking meats. The Greeks followed. Then the Romans had the idea of sticking a pastry lid on top, as a way of keeping things hot, and also of preserving the meat inside. But here’s the other thing I like: seems the word itself, “pie,” comes from…magpies! “Pie” comes from “pica,” meaning beak, “mag” from a noisy, naggy, “maggie” (sorry, all Margarets) person. So the crows’ still-famous habit of picking up every bright thing they see and storing it noisily in their nest gave the idea for the name: a pie as a “pastry box” stuffed with food odds and ends.
So my pie was really good, even at the happy hour size. Next time, I’m going to go check out a Kiwi meat pie business named Auntie Devi’s up in Poway. I’ve heard people say they’re the best. Until then, I’m happy eating humble pie right here.
The Place: Queenstown Public House, 1557 Columbia Street, Little Italy, 619-546-0444
Hours: 11am - 10pm daily (till 11pm, Saturday, Sunday)
Prices: New Zealand meat pie (wagyu, cheddar, puff pastry), $25; lamb skewers, $28; rack of lamb, $39; Kiwilango (burger, organic patty, jalapeno, blue cheese), $23
Happy Hour prices: hummus and pita, $8; slider (with choice of lamb, beef, pork, Kiwilango, or miso), $9; Veggie pie and chips, $10; fish and chips, $10; Cat’s chili, $10; beet salad, $10; veggie pie and chips, $10
Trolleys: Blue, Green Line
Nearest Trolley Stop: County Center/Little Italy
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