RESTAURANT REVIEW : Pub’s Meat Pies Gladden Anglophiles

Many people consider “good English cooking” a contradiction in terms. I used to, myself.

The first time I visited England, I was a student and so short of funds I had to subsist on greasy little pies from vending machines, costing five pence and filled with a meat mixture that tasted like sawdust. It seemed they were for sale everywhere--laundromats, bus stations and other gourmet hot spots. It was a long time before I ate meat pies again.

Well, surprise. I’ve discovered that I like meat pies after all.

At the Buchanan Arms, a real English pub in Burbank that serves real English pub food, you can eat a variety of good homemade meat pies, and much more. It’s amazing how much better the pies taste when they don’t come out of a machine.

The Buchanan Arms is first and foremost a watering hole for thirsty Brits and Anglophiles, who flock there around Happy Hour to have a lukewarm draught of Watney’s, Bass or Guiness. If you are not familiar with the various ales and stouts from the British Isles, just remember that they are sweeter, darker and often more bitter than their American counterparts. Should you be even more curious, the house permits one taste per customer.

The place is owned by a Scottish couple, Rennie and Helen Horn, and the decor is strictly from north of the Firth of Forth. Tables are covered in tartan cloths, and there is plenty of kitschy Scottish bric-a-brac strung all over the walls, including real bagpipes. Fortunately for me, no one ever plays them, except on specially advertised nights. Bagpipe music makes me want to run screaming into a loch somewhere.

You can start a dinner with a bowlful of the delicious cocky-leeky, a thick soup made with chicken broth, short-grained rice and plenty of leeks. It’s an intense, filling dish designed to warm the flesh after a walk on a windy Scottish moor, but it tastes pretty special in Burbank too. The cafeteria-style salads and shrimp cocktail are far less special.

Fish and chips outsell the pies here, and I can understand the appeal. The Horns use flaky Icelandic cod, which they fry to golden crispness in beer batter, and it’s as good a version as I can recall having. A little vial of malt vinegar sits on every table, waiting to give it some extra zip.

But it’s the pies that make this pub the real article. My favorite one just happens to be the most modest, the Scotch meat pie. It’s a round hot-water pastry filled with seasoned ground beef. Melted suet and spices run out in little rivulets when you cut it open.

They also make something called a bridie, a bigger, more spherical pastry with more beef and lots of onions inside. This is a more countrified dish; the pastry is a lot heavier, and it stays with you a lot longer. Try it on that rare night when a harsh wind is whipping down Burbank Boulevard, and you’ve got your Burberry on.

Fans of Cornish pasties may wish to know that those packets of meat and vegetables in short crust have not been passed over. I didn’t try them here, however, because the friendly waitress informed me they aren’t made on the premises. I did have a homemade sausage roll, which did not impress me much. The sausage was tasty, but the whole thing was too greasy.

There are still other pub favorites to try here, including shepherd’s pie (ground lamb with a mashed potato topping--often a lunch special) and banger sausage cooked in a crisp, light batter. There’s even roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.

Then come the homemade desserts. Rum-soaked trifle. Scotch orange marmalade cake. Homemade strawberry shortcake, slathered with layers of thick whipped cream.

But I would do something altogether different for dessert, especially at lunch. The side door opens onto the adjacent Piccadilly Shop, an English and Scottish gift and food shop with a splendid array of cakes, candies and sundries. The son and daughter-in-law of the Horns are the proud new owners.

So I’d load up with some of my favorite English cakes and candies: Eccles cakes (little squashed scones filled with currants and raisins), Quality Street chocolates by Mackintosh in their colorful little wrappers and even Maltesers (pronounced “malt-teasers”), which are airy, crunchy little malted milk balls without peer in this universe. They’re great, and you’ll never find them in a candy machine.

Recommended dishes: cocky-leeky soup, $1.75; fish and chips, $7.50; Scotch meat pie, $5.25; bridie, $6.75.

The Buchanan Arms, 2013 Burbank Blvd., Burbank, (818) 845-0692. Lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Full bar. Street parking. Dinner for two, food only, $20-$35.