Oddly, this is a post I've been meaning to make for a while, but now it fits with Matthew in New Zealand. A few months ago I went allllll the way across the Bay to Alameda -- not to see the "nuclear wessels," as some out there might think -- but to go to a pub called The New Zealander.
A Kiwi friend of mine has been missing the food of her country of late, so another friend dug up this pub as a place to sup on authentic New Zealand meat pies. It's also a place to get something called an "Aucklander 3 AM White Lady Special," which is drunk food at its best. It's a huge burger topped with -- let's see if I can remember -- fried egg, pineapple, garlic, cheese, tomato, onion, and possibly ham. Since I wasn't stumbling up to a food van after a night of drinking, I didn't order that. However, when one of my companions did, I suddenly realized that maybe my one sip of stout was more powerful than I thought. That burger looked damn good. Then again, even without alcoholic aids, I happen to like peanut butter and jelly on toast topped with bacon, so, you know, maybe I'm not the best judge of normal food.
I settled for a steak and cheese pie. Well, at least for starters.
It was everything a meaty pie should be: a crispy pie crust bottom with pouffy, flaky puff pastry top and sides, stuffed with meltingly tender steak. Even though the gravy inside was rich and delicious, I still went wild for Watties, the Kiwi answer to ketchup. Its clove-y sweet goodness made a perfect pair with everything I ate, including their special rosemary roasted potatoes that I simply couldn't resist.
After the meat pie and the potatoes and the two pints of stout you'd think I'd be pretty well full, huh? But see, then you'd be wrong.