Pure Pasty

Pure Pasty
128-C Church Street
Vienna, VA
www.purepasty.com

I think my last post may have been a little misleading. After thinking about it for maybe a total of 2 seconds, I thought to myself that it may have sounded like I’m a British ex-pat who is yearning for thecomfort food of his homeland. The reality is I’ve never actually been to England before, nor really outside of the country (I don’t count the Caribbean as “international“) so I’m just a guy who once had a frozen pastry that was called a pasty and I’ve liked them ever since.

Just yesterday my housemate (yes that’s right, for those of you who don’t know me, I live with another dude, but he has his own room and I have my own) was baking something that smelled very similar to a pasty. I commented to Anita how much the smell reminded me of a pasty and how I wanted one.

Well talk about the alignment of the moon and the stars, just this morning I was perusing NBC 4's website and found a video featuring a new venue called Pure Pasty. I was intrigued and cautiously optimistic. Was Pure Pasty really a pasty shop or is it just a front for some other sort of store? Where could this place be located? Surely it wouldn't be anywhere nearby, it’s always some place far far away like in Woodbridge or Fredericksburg, heck even DC is kinda far away for a guy who doesn’t like to drive too much. After a quick Google search all my questions were answered and my fears assuaged. Pure Pasty was indeed a British style pasty shop and is super conveniently located in Vienna, Virginia – just 3 miles from home!

The restaurant is a little hard to locate and appears that parking could be a problem if you went at a busier time of day. We went around 11:30am on a Sunday and the adjacent bike store was not open so there was plenty of parking. The actual store area is very small, most of the restaurant area is an open kitchen so seating is extremely limited. We took our pasties to go.

So what did we order? We got 2 traditional pasties, 1 sausage roll, and 1 steak and guiness pie. We tried the traditional pasty first and it was goooooood. The pastry really stole the show. It was so soft, tender, flaky, and buttery it was to die for! Next up was the sausage roll. I guess this is a traditional item that would be found in a pasty shop, but I had never tried it before. It personally didn’t like the flavor of the sausage. I think it had a very heavy caraway flavor (at least I think that was caraway). It wasn’t bad just not my cup of tea hahahaha an allusion to England’s tea time. Last but not least was the steak and Guinness pie. This sort of resembled a chicken pot pie, but the crust was probably more shiny and golden brown than any pot pie that I have ever seen before. The crimping was perfect! So we dig right in - under that gorgeous crust is sort of a beef stew. I didn’t really care for the filling - I think it was the Guinness gr avy that I didn’t care for. Don’t get me wrong, it was really good, but just not exactly what I was expecting. The filling also had carrots, potatoes, onions, and celery. I think there were a few other ingredients inside but they were a little hard to positively identify.

Conclusion
I love this place! In my previous post I documented my love affair with pasties. I cannot believe this place has been here in Vienna, practically right under my nose for over 6 months and I just found out about it today. I’m craving it more and more right now. I’m going to be back in Vienna on Wednesday afternoon and I’m definitely thinking of going back for 2 or 3 or 4 or more traditional pasties. They’ve got some other flavors that I could try, but usually the traditional is the best for me. I can’t wait to eat more! I’m highly/strongly/definitely recommend you stop by and pick yourself up a couple of dozen pasties! Bring me back some too!