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SCMP Reporter

If Santa was eating mince pies, it is unlikely that they would be baked in Hong Kong.

 Our blind tasting in search of tradition shows that, when it comes to mince pie lore, it is very difficult to out-Brit the British.

 The best of six pies we tasted both came from British institution Marks & Spencer.

 Tasters were Gavin Harvard-Walls of Jimmy's Kitchen Central, Josephine Lawrence of the California Group, and Florent Rondez of the Maxim's group's European Restaurants Division.

 Comments on the others ranged from Ms Lawrence's 'bloody expensive' in response to a $13 price-tag on one upmarket effort to Mr Rondez's 'it tastes like it is filled with preservatives', which was his comment on a $12 pie from one of Hong Kong's more prominent bakeries.

 The pastries, bought on the day of the tasting, came from the Mandarin Cake Shop, La Rose Noire at city'super in Times Square, and Lenotre in Pacific Place's Seibu.

 The remaining three puff pastry, deep-filled and luxury deep-filled were a selection ranging in price from $30 to $40 for six, from the St Michael's range carried by Marks & Spencer.

 The Mandarin's mince pies ($13) were given top ratings for presentation. Each pie is wrapped individually, which gives it a status normally reserved for precious things, and placed in the cake shop's trademark brown paper bags.

 But that was where the accolades ended.

 While opinions varied on the amount of sugar on top, our tasters were unanimous in their conclusion that there was not enough spice - cinnamon in particular - inside.

 'The filling should be more spicy and moist,' Mr Rondez said. It also needed more filling.

 Ms Lawrence added: 'There's the right amount of pastry, but not enough filling.'  The most distinguishing feature of the mince pies from La Rose Noire ($12 each) was the Star of David decoration, which did not work either from a Christian angle ('They could have avoided the star,' Mr Harvard-Walls said) or a Jewish angle ('Mince pies don't double up well as Chanukah cookies,' I said).

 'This pastry is horrible,' Ms Lawrence said. 'And it's not cooked properly. It's like they put on too much glaze, then covered it with sugar.'  No one liked the filling either. 'It tastes like it was made in bulk,' Mr Harvard-Walls said.

 Plus the $12 price tag was considered too high. Avoid at all costs was the overriding opinion.

 The icing sugar coating of the Lenotre mince pie ($7 each) did not go down too well. 'It doesn't look like a mince pie,' Mr Rondez said.

 And, as it turned out, it did not taste like one either. Everyone thought the pastry was over-cooked, which could have accounted for the price discount being offered, and that jam had no place in a mince pie. 'These are biscuits,' both Mr Rondez and Mr Harvard-Walls said.

 Mr Rondez added: 'This has nothing to do with a mince pie, it's more like a linzer torte.'  Lenotre did not win any friends with its pack- aging, either: the tarts were given bog-standard supermarket treatment, chucked into a plastic bag, sealed, and thrown into the Lenotre-branded paper packet.

 Marks & Spencer's efforts at tampering with tradition by replacing short-crust pastry with the puff version were given the thumbs down.

 'It's very strange. I've never seen anything like this before,' Mr Harvard-Walls said of its 'traditional puff pastry mince pies'.

 Mr Rondez said: 'At least they look like the picture.' It did not get much better than that. 'This is not fresh. Puff past ry needs to be eaten right away,' he continued. Then Mr Harvard-Walls chimed in: 'If you took these back, they would have to change them. They are sub-standard.'  However, the filling came close to something traditionalists felt more comfortable with. 'This filling is the best so far,' Ms Lawrence said.

 'Even if the pastry is bad, the ratio of filling to pastry is right.'  At mince pie No 5, Marks & Spencer's six luxury deep-filled mince pies, the panel perked up. 'This looks good . . . and it has the right smell,' Ms Lawrence concluded.

 Mr Rondez criticised the amount of sugar on top, and Mr Harvard-Walls did not like the jam-flavoured filling.

 However, the pastry was given full marks for being 'buttery'.

 'This is the best so far,' Mr Rondez declared - until we reached sister mince pie, the M & S traditional deep-filled mince pies. 'I like the look,' he continued.

 'I like the presentation,' added Mr Harvard-Walls. Comments ranged from: 'I like the pastry of this one and the filling of the other one from M & S', to 'Shouldn't there be more of a brandy taste?'  However, overall, it got the best mince pie vote. 'This is traditional,' Ms Lawrence said, adding: 'Every year you have one and say 'whooooah, I couldn't have a second one' . . . now that's tradition al.' 



British still the mince pie kings