Meat pie was one of my favourites when I was studying in Australia. You can find them at just about everywhere. However, it's not easy to find a classic Aussie pie in Singapore. A lot of the pies here are made of puff pastry rather than short crust pastry. What I liked about the pies at Big Ben’s Place is the fact that they were close to the ones I used to eat in Australia.
The crust was just right such that it was not overly crumbly but firm to the bite. You can almost describe it as "al dente". My favourite was the beef and mushrooms. They used nice beef chunks. I think that the amount of beef chunks have been reduced somewhat in recent days due to the increasing food cost. Although the pies here might not be as good as the meat pies I had in Australia, it came close.
When you’re there, try the steak, bacon and Guinness pie.The chicken pie is one of its best sellers, but I did not like it as much as the beef pies. Even in Australia, I seldom ate chicken pie. I felt that the gravy was too watery and “herbal” for my liking. For me, Big Ben’s is the place to satisfy my craving for an Aussie pie.

This café prides itself in “Traditional homemade English pies filled with quality ingredients in short crust pastry shell” according to its website. The menu promises - “Delicious, sumptuous, savoury, satisfying are a few ways to describe Big Ben’s Pies”

Steak & Guinness pie ($3.80) – The individual components of this pie is great, chunky steak cubes which are tender and flavourful, the gravy is also thick and nice. Crust is also good. But put them all together, it fails to satisfy me. Perhaps this version of pie is different from how I like my pies to be – hearty and rich. This pie is delicious, just too dainty for my liking.

Irish Lamb Stew pie set ($7.60) – includes choice of pie, bake beans, fries and soup of the day. Compared to the steak pie, this is more dry and hollow. Between these two pies, I prefer the former.

Chicken Chop ($8.50) – pan roasted chicken leg with rustic mashed potatoes and salad. There is a choice of either garlic or mushroom sauce for the chicken chop. We chose the garlic. Amongst the three mains, this is clearly the winner. Most hearty and satisfying of all. Worth highlighting is the mashed potato. This is made of real potatoes, coarsely mashed with skin intact, is much better than those from a box!

Devil’s Wings ($9.60) for six wings – total of 12 pieces. Mildly spicy wings, not bad for sharing. Wwe were halfway through our wings that we could request for higher levels of spiciness.

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Never heard of the place and went there to check it out. Learnt about it through a bank's promotion and thought that it would be a good time to try out the cafe.

Ambience/Setting

The ambience is not too bad. It is simple and plain but acceptable. Gave it a three as we found a waitress who could probably earn the Rudest Waitress of the Year award if she entered for the competition, and treat her presence as part of the setting.

Food

Food is all right and nothing to shout about. We had the ribeye steak, fish and chip and chicken chop.

Value

Without the bank's promotion it would not be worth the value priced on the menu.

Service

This is what got us and we are not going back again. And they have this wonderful waitress to thank for.

She could not even get our orders right and plong down the food on our table. She does not replendish your drinks and tells you that they are short of manpower! (Should that not be an internal problem that the cafe should be handling? Why burden their problems onto the customers?) It is as if it is the customers' fault for asking for the water and the cafe was not even half full. She even dare you to complain to the management. We did and what surprises us is that the partners who were in there at that time did not dare to do anything about it and she gets her way! To be fair, one of the partner was apologetic but did nothing at all. Maybe she is a bigger partner?

No way are we going back to any establishment where the you spend your money and be greeted by service such as this.