Wednesday 18 March 2015

Pie and Vinyl Southsea

Recently my boyfriend and I ventured out to Southsea - a seaside town in Portsmouth, where we were recommended a place called Pie and Vinyl by a friend. This restaurant does exactly what it says on the tin, it serves pie and also sells vinyl - where two beautiful worlds collide and it works perfectly well! 

Pie&Vinyl sign

Pie and Vinyl is located down Castle Street in Southsea, which is around a 15 minute walk from the parks across the seafront - perfect for a quick and simple lunch, but also packed with flavour and goodness! 

The decor alone is amazing, with a cute vintage feel throughout the whole place - walking in you are instantly greeted by someone who works there. We decided to have lunch first and then go for a browse around the vinyl, so we picked a table and perused through the menu.

Pie&Vinyl menu

There were so many pie's to chose from, so it made the choice quite difficult - because I wanted to try them all! But I settled on the Irish special - Lamb Stew with Whisky (It was Saint Patricks Day after all). I ordered it as 'the works' which means you get the pie with mash, minted peas and a choice of either the traditional pie liquor or gravy. I chose liquor as I'd never had it before. 

We also ordered drinks, I had a Strawberry and Kiwi sparkling cordial and my boyfriend had a sparkling Cream Soda cordial. The waitress brought them over in two different tea pots, which was a cute touch, and you can get around 2/3 glasses of the drink - which is great because it was so tasty! It was lovely to have a different choice of drinks instead of the usual coke or lemonade! 

Strawberry and Kiwi Sparkling cordial.

The whole atmosphere of this place was so welcoming, it's chilled and cafe like, but they also have quirky details, as well as the amazing music that is playing. The walls are covered in music memorabilia, along with teapots and little knick-knacks, which just made it a really awesome place!

When the pies came out I couldn't wait to try it - it looked delicious! 

Irish Stew Pie with traditional pie liquor

My pie was so good - the pastry was just the right kind of crispy, and the lamb was perfectly cooked inside - it was literally falling apart! The pie also had potatoes, carrots and a whiskey gravy. The liquor was interesting (in a good way!!) and it worked perfectly with the whole dish. Again the mash and peas were so good, I just wanted to eat it over and over again!
I tried some of Craig's - Chicken and Chorizo pie, which was so tasty, very different from mine but wonderfully delicious. 

Table in Pie&Vinyl

After devouring our pies, we slowly wondered over to the vinyl side of this wonderful little place, where we flicked through many records from new to old, unfortunately Craig couldn't find the vinyl he was hoping to find, but it was fun none the less. 

I'm quite surprised they haven't branched out into other cities (come to Southampton!) such as London - there would be a queue out of the door all of the time! I will definitely be visiting here again because I need to try all the different pies! 

 x