29
Sep
Pie Hard; Dundee
Pie 6. Mince Pie (£2.00). Served at Dens Park Stadium, Dundee.
Dundee FC 0 - 1 Greenock Morton FC.
Scottish League 1st Division. 27/08/2011
On home soil again to check out the catering debacle that are the tin portacabins at the Den's Park South Enclosure. Like Livingston we are catered for by a company called Lindleys. Their products are generally rubbish. I flirted with a few items from the menu last season but after the crushing feeling left by the ineptness of a £3.40 burger even going to future home games as pissed as a Lord meant I generally avoided the tin huts Back once again, how would the shoogly shacks fare this time around?
Facilities
You get your pie in the South Enclosure in what is best described as a scene from sort of fucked up kitchen-cum-building site that would not look out of place in slightly backwards Romanian village. As the two available shacks slowly rust further each year the sight becomes sadder and sadder to behold. It also looks about as hygeinic as a backstreet Cambodian doctors surgery.
Dundee FC 0 - 1 Greenock Morton FC.
Scottish League 1st Division. 27/08/2011
On home soil again to check out the catering debacle that are the tin portacabins at the Den's Park South Enclosure. Like Livingston we are catered for by a company called Lindleys. Their products are generally rubbish. I flirted with a few items from the menu last season but after the crushing feeling left by the ineptness of a £3.40 burger even going to future home games as pissed as a Lord meant I generally avoided the tin huts Back once again, how would the shoogly shacks fare this time around?
Facilities
You get your pie in the South Enclosure in what is best described as a scene from sort of fucked up kitchen-cum-building site that would not look out of place in slightly backwards Romanian village. As the two available shacks slowly rust further each year the sight becomes sadder and sadder to behold. It also looks about as hygeinic as a backstreet Cambodian doctors surgery.
The South Enclosure is the last part of the ground to see any sort of redevelopment and it is definitely a throwback to Dundee's more slummy years when everyone had to take a shit in an outside toilet. On a plus point they appear to have taken the route favoured by Livingston of attempting to take your mind of the extortionate pricing by employing what can only once again be described as a staff of pram-faced jailbait girls. This mob must have near cleaned out the Boots No7 counter with their giros on Friday to make this sort of showing in their modifiied portacabin on the Saturday afternoon. Mildly impressive.
Pricing
Jings, crivens and help mah fuckin' boab! Things were bad enough last season but the cheeky b*****ds have only hastilly adapted the price list to up what were already ricockulous prices across the boards.
Pricing
Jings, crivens and help mah fuckin' boab! Things were bad enough last season but the cheeky b*****ds have only hastilly adapted the price list to up what were already ricockulous prices across the boards.
Perhaps the stoat-the-baw staff did it on the fly with their lip-liner to fund a Lambrini-fueled expedition down the swingpark later that evening. You can close your eyes then take your pick here and mock away at whatever you choose really. Considering the quality of the grub the prices at Dens really are a complete joke. £1.90 for a carton of Ribena is only suitable in a future dystopian world where robots from Mars have taken every blackcurrant from the planet for their own nefarious needs. There has been talk recently about the Lindleys contract - the club seemingly don't make much from it and a long contract was signed when we were really desperate for money a while back that runs 'till 2015. With this pricing a boycott is not really needed but I did note that considering the decent enough crowd that at half time the stalls were noticeably quieter than last season. I chose the mince pie.
Presentation
The double-insurance of a napkin and a tin tray and feeling some heat coming through to my palm was reassuring but there weasn't really much to say about this pie. The upper lid was fired to a reasonable level and glowed golden-brown as you'd hope and a quick pop and munch out of the tin showed that while the rear-end was slightly grey and squidgy there wouldn't be too many dramas in ramming this pie into my head. I chomped down and chomped down again and while the top crust was nice enough and the warmth at passable levels nothing really stood out to me. Fairly non-descript. 4/10
Crust
The uppermost lid would not yield in the standard way to my gob-related advances on it. The top tore away leaving a near embarrasing flappy sauce-soaked section hanging from my gob. With deft napkin use I diffused what could have been a frankly embarrasing situation and a sound mocking asking if I needed my Tommy Tipee to finish it off. There was a tactile squidgyness on the bottom of the pie but things held fairly well together here. As I delved further it was clear the pie was just warm through rather than at the sort of temperatures you'd hope for. 3/10
Filling
A strong point. The mince filling here was fairly generous, not too gristly and had a passable pepper spread to give some added bite. My carefully applied brown sauce entered the fray from the previous buckling lid debacle and the result was a spicy but slightly messy filling that was fairly tasty to indulge. I enjoyed it 'till around three-quarters of the way through when the structural integrity of the product dramatically and swiftly failed meaning I had to skillfully dispose of it before soiling my clothing. Not too bad though. 5/10
Consistency
As touched on above, not the best. The pie sailed through the lift test. I had it in hand for a good 30 seconds but after the 4th or 5th bite the pastry construction collapsed, the pie folded in on itself and the whole thing ended up on the ground quicker than Michelle McManus involved in a particularly unfortunate incident with a lift-shaft. 3/10
Overall
Overpriced and slightly tedious would be my summing up of this one. It was warmed to half decent levels and had a fair filling but nothing to set the heather on fire. If sold at a reasonable price you wouldn't grumble but with that sort of mark up the Dens Park Pie is sadly lacking.
Presentation
The double-insurance of a napkin and a tin tray and feeling some heat coming through to my palm was reassuring but there weasn't really much to say about this pie. The upper lid was fired to a reasonable level and glowed golden-brown as you'd hope and a quick pop and munch out of the tin showed that while the rear-end was slightly grey and squidgy there wouldn't be too many dramas in ramming this pie into my head. I chomped down and chomped down again and while the top crust was nice enough and the warmth at passable levels nothing really stood out to me. Fairly non-descript. 4/10
Crust
The uppermost lid would not yield in the standard way to my gob-related advances on it. The top tore away leaving a near embarrasing flappy sauce-soaked section hanging from my gob. With deft napkin use I diffused what could have been a frankly embarrasing situation and a sound mocking asking if I needed my Tommy Tipee to finish it off. There was a tactile squidgyness on the bottom of the pie but things held fairly well together here. As I delved further it was clear the pie was just warm through rather than at the sort of temperatures you'd hope for. 3/10
Filling
A strong point. The mince filling here was fairly generous, not too gristly and had a passable pepper spread to give some added bite. My carefully applied brown sauce entered the fray from the previous buckling lid debacle and the result was a spicy but slightly messy filling that was fairly tasty to indulge. I enjoyed it 'till around three-quarters of the way through when the structural integrity of the product dramatically and swiftly failed meaning I had to skillfully dispose of it before soiling my clothing. Not too bad though. 5/10
Consistency
As touched on above, not the best. The pie sailed through the lift test. I had it in hand for a good 30 seconds but after the 4th or 5th bite the pastry construction collapsed, the pie folded in on itself and the whole thing ended up on the ground quicker than Michelle McManus involved in a particularly unfortunate incident with a lift-shaft. 3/10
Overall
Overpriced and slightly tedious would be my summing up of this one. It was warmed to half decent levels and had a fair filling but nothing to set the heather on fire. If sold at a reasonable price you wouldn't grumble but with that sort of mark up the Dens Park Pie is sadly lacking.
Dens Park.
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