The Key Lime Pie Quest

I had an emergency craving for my favorite dessert, key lime pie, one evening at about 10 pm. I couldn’t find one.

Cue Social Media

Determined to solve this problem, I put the following post on my Facebook feed:

The Appeal

Serious question of world shaking consequence: where in Corpus can I get a really good slice of key lime pie? Please answer quickly. The fate of the universe may depend on it.

My FB friends tried to be helpful, recommending a number of chain restaurants that don’t have locations in my city, the local grocery story (for…gasp ... frozen pie), and recipes on how to make my own. I realized that my craving has sparked a question worthy of serious philosophical inquiry:

The Quest Begins

I decided to embark upon a Quest with a Capital Q. But questions arose. What makes for a good piece of Key Lime Pie? How could I judge a good piece of pie from a bad one? What’s the difference between good pie and great pie? Clearly, some sort of method of scientific inquiry was required. Once again, I appealed to online friends.

Thanks to the FB amigos who sought to help me address my Camus like existential crisis by recommending restaurants that feature Key Lime Pie.

I realize, though, that this has presented me with a dilemma worthy of A Quest: which fine establishment has the best Key Lime pie?

I need your help developing an objective set of criteria with which to judge Key Lime Pie Awesomeness. This is what I propose:

The Key Lime Criteria

Size/Portion. Needs to be large enough to satisfy but not so large it will choke Godzilla.

• Tartness. This is tricky--Lovers of Key Lime pie like this treat because their sweet teeth are not that sweet. It has to be tart, but not sour--tart, with an underlying hint of sweetness. The mouth should smile, not pucker, after a bite.
• Limeyness. Key Limes taste different from other limes--it's a unique flavor. Some will cheat and say "A lime is a lime." A Key Lime pie that is not made from Key Limes is . . . well, it's not a Key Lime Pie.
• Creaminess. Most pies have a ring of little cream rosebuds on the outside edge. If present, the cream must compliment, not compete with, the taste of the Key Lime. Is the cream mildly sweet, but not oversweet? Does it blend nicely with the taste of Key Lime?
• Crust. The pie artiste has discretion on this. I have had good Key Lime Pies that were made of the traditional graham cracker and butter crust, and others that were made of the more traditional flaky pie crust. Either is fine, as long as it tastes good and compliments the Key Limeyness of it all.

What think ye of these criteria? Have you suggestions? Your feedback--as well as additional suggestions for Key Lime pie places--are both welcome.

Tonight: The Yardarm.

The Committee Forms

Unanticipated problems arose, specifically, my family. My plan was to identify a place that had key lime pie, purchase a slice, take it home, and eat it. This would work really well if I lived alone. However, I live with others, so I could either be a jerk, buy my pie, come home, and eat it in front of them. Or I could be nice, buy four desserts, bring them home, and go broke.

A middle ground presented itself. I could share. I could involve my family in the quest. We could, collectively, try the pie and judge it by the scientific criteria I had developed over four painstaking minutes of thought. Thus, The Committee was born. It consisted of three people—Diana (my spouse) and Ben (then 10 years old), and me.

The Extremely Scientific Review Process

We tried many pies, some of which were delicious, others which ranged from blah to it’s so bad it burns. I won’t waste your time with the truly awful ones, but instead share with you the Top Six.

The Reviews:

These are presented in the order in which we tried them. The first three were “outsourced” pies, or pies the restaurant bought from a vendor. The last three were all made in-house at the restaurant that served them.

The Outsourced Pies:

Key Lime Pie Review #1: Yardarm

First stop on the Key Lime Pie Quest was the Yardarm. I had three tasters: Diana (my spouse), Ben (my ten year old), and me. Each of us judged the pie according to our criteria.

Size/Portion: As you can see from the photo, this was a bit on the smallish side.

Tartness: This is where we had the most disagreement; Diana thought it was a bit sweet, Ben thought it was perfect, and I found it a bit on the tart side.

Key Limeyness. Definitely a nice Key Lime flavor. Good quality Key Limes were used.

Creaminess: As you can tell from the photo, there were no rosebuds of cream around the outside. The pie had a strange consistency; it was like Jello Cheesecake (rather than real cheesecake). Slightly grainy.

Crust: The pie maker went the graham cracker crust route. However, not enough butter was used, and the crust didn't stand up to cutting (look at the graham cracker crust powder on the edge of the photo where you'd expect to see pie crust. The crust also powdered every time you cut into it for a bite, falling apart and adding to the grainy texture. The crust actually tasted pretty good, but its inability to hold together detracted from the overall pie.

Summing up: meh. Diana thought it was average, I thought it had too many little things wrong with it, and Ben thought it was better than no pie at all. To be fair to the Yardarm, it does not make its own pie but gets them from a supplier (which the owner did not name). It's quite possible that supplier has changed since the person who recommended the Yardarm last ate there.

The quest continues . . .

Key Lime Pie Review#2: Small Planet (Sadly, this place has closed, one of the family businesses that was a casualty of the pandemic. A real loss)

First, I have to say that this was a physically beautiful pie. It had a ring of cream rosebuds around the outside, which was inscribed with a ring of lime slices on it. Absolutely lovely.

Portion: This was, as you can see, substantial--about twice as thick as the Yardarm pie, but it was not overly loud. This would not choke Godzilla. This was an excellent size.

Tartness: All three reviewers thought this pie had an excellent blend of tartness and sweetness. Your mouth recognized the tartness without bitterness, with a hint of sweetness underneath.

Key Limeyness: I have been blessed so far; both pies I have tasted were made from real Key Lime, and had that nice acidic yet sweet that comes from these fine fruit.

Creaminess: Interestingly, this pie had a nice thickness of Key Lime filling and had the cream rosebuds around the edge. I feared oversweetness, but the slice of lime on top of the pie and the Key Lime filling beneath created a very nice blend. Without the cream, the tartness might have crossed the line into "too much," but, the creaminess provided the first counterbalance.

Crust: Like WOW. At first, I thought the piewright had gone with the traditional flaky crust rather than graham cracker--perfectly acceptable. But when I bit in, I realize that the graham cracker crust was so perfectly formed that it looked like the traditional pie crust but was not. Exactly the right amount of butter to graham cracker ratio gave this crust a cohesiveness, so it did not crumble while being eaten, but there wasn't so much butter that it overcame the graham cracker flavoring.

Final thoughts: This was a Grade A, Top Flight tasting piece of Key Lime Pie. My only quibble is that, like Yardarm, Small Planet does not make its own Key Lime Pies, but buys they from a service. The high quality of this pie proves there's not a thing wrong with outsourcing if your supplier provides high quality product. But I still quest for a tasty, made-in-house Key Lime Pie.

The quest continues; I am still taking suggestions.

Next: McAlister's.

Key Lime Pie Review #3: McAlister's.

Key Lime Pie is not a regular menu item at McAlister's, so I almost missed this. But a friend of mine suggested this deli when I took my poll of places with Key Lime Pie, so Benjamin and I sojourned there and brought home a slice of pie to try.

As you can tell from the photo, this is different looking. The server drizzled the pie with caramel sauce and sprinkled a generous serving of candied, sliced almonds on the top. Certainly a departure from the norm, but I'm open to innovation.

Portion: This was smaller than the Small Planet pie, but much thicker than the one from Yardarm. A satisfactory portion.

Tartness. When you first take a bite, you are overcome with the sweetness of the caramel and the candied sliced almond--it's not what you expect from a Key Lime Pie. Then, the sweetness merges with the cream, and it tastes like a Jolly Rancher Sour Apple, and then it the lime flavor hits, and the combination, quite frankly, tastes bad. (to me--neither Ben nor Diana found the flavor unpleasant, but I thought it was bad. They also like Sour Apple Jolly Rancher candies; I do not). After that weird taste mash up, you're left with a faint aftertaste of lime. Each of these flavors, I think, would taste OK by themselves, but the mistake is in the combination. Clearly, the caramel and candied almond slices work against the other pie flavors.

Key Limeyness. No Key Lime Flavor at all. A lime taste, yes, but definitely not a Key Lime flavor. I suspect artificial flavoring.

Creaminess. Like the excellent Small Planet entry, it had a layer of cream over a layer of Key Lime Pie filling. However, the cream layer tasted like Cool Whip. I don't mind Cool Whip--put over Jello, or on ice cream when you're doing homemade sundaes, ant it's fine. But as an ingredient in a good pie? I think not.

Crust. Here, too, innovation went awry. This, too, was a traditional graham cracker crust, but they either used chocolate flavored graham crackers or some other kind of chocolate flavoring. It didn't work, especially given the competing medley of other flavors.

Final thoughts: Diana said that, if you ordered this pie and weren't told it was a Key Lime Pie, you might like it. Ben, bless his heart, finds good in everything, but this wasn't his favorite. I just thought the pie tasted bad and was glad Ben wanted to finish it. Like the previous two offerings, but was an outsourced pie, it wasn't made in house.

Next: The Saltwater Grill

In-House Pies:

Key Lime Pie Review #4: The Saltwater Grill

This was the first made-in-house Key Lime pie I encountered on The Quest. Expectations were high.

Portion: As you can see from the photo, it's small-ish, about the size and thickness of the first pie tried (Yardarm). Not a generous portion, but also the least expensive of the pies I've tried, so I'd say that, size wise, it's a good value for the price.

Tartness. There might have once been the hint of a memory of a wisp of an echo of an emanation from a shadow of a dream of a taste of lime in this pie. There might not have been, either. It was not in the least bit tart. It wasn't overly sweet, either. It had the flavor of a well made cheesecake.

Key Limeyness: If there is not any lime flavor, there couldn't be Key Limeyness. There might have been a hint of a greenish tinge; judge for yourself from the photo. Perhaps the (possibly) green tint came from the echo of a memory that the pie maker might have had of having once seen a Key Lime.

Creaminess: As you can see, there were nicely shaped rosettes of cream in a ring around the edge of the pie. They were artfully made, and the cream tasted delish (no Cool Whip here--take note, McAllister's!). Excellent creaminess, but, as there was no Key Limeyness to contrast with the creaminess, the cream was only one half of a duo, like Art Garfunkel without Paul Simon, or the Pips without Gladys Knight.

Crust: This was a nicely composed graham cracker crust, with an excellent flavor and just the right ratio of butter to graham cracker. But, as you can see from the photo, it was unevenly made--parts of it were of normal thickness, and there were other parts that were at least half as thick as the pie filling. It made for an uneven eating experience, and the crust overpowered the other flavors at times due to its thickness. A good pie crust is like the male partner in a Latin dance duo--it should be pleasant, should look good, and not call attention to itself, keeping the focus on its partner, in this case, the pie filling.

Final thoughts: This was a nice piece of cheesecake. If it had been served to me as such, I would have been happy (although I would have noted the thick wave of crust in one part, which I might have put down to the inexperience of a pie maker in training). It simply wasn't Key Lime pie. Ben and Diana had similar reactions to this offering, although Ben loved the thick chunk of pie crust.

Next: Hester's.

Key Lime Pie Review #5: Hester's

My friend Amy Aldridge-Sanford said my quest would end once I got to Hester's, because, as she said, "It's that good." This made expectations very high for this stop on the quest. Hester's makes its Key Lime pies in-house and from scratch. As you can see from the photo, it's a pretty piece of pie.

Portion: It rivaled Small Planet in its generosity--it is tied (so far) for largest slice. A very generous portion of pie, but not so large as to choke Godzilla. Very high marks in this category.

Tartness: This was TART--the most tart pie we have tried so far. For me, that's a positive--it was tart without being sour, a nice, full bodied flavor. Unlike Small Planet, this had a much thicker layer of Key Lime filling; SP had a equal thicknesses of both Key Lime filling and cream, while Hester's had cream rosettes covering the entire top of the pie. If there hadn't been so many cream rosettes, it might have been too tart, but, as it was, it was absolutely the right level of tartness for me. Diana and Ben both found it nicely tart without being overly so.

Key Limeyness: Without a doubt, this pie was made with Key Limes. That tangy level of tartness could only have been made with one type of citrus--genuine Key Limes. Top marks in this category.

Creaminess: The homemade cream was piped into a layer of rosettes that covered the entire top of the pie. By itself, the cream was delicious--indubitably dairy, nicely sweet but not stickily so. Working in conjunction with the Key Lime pie filling, the cream was Fred Astaire to the Key Lime's Ginger Rogers. Cream/Fred was elegant, reliable, and smooth, perfectly complimenting the Key Lime/Ginger, doing everything in a dazzling manner in a dress, backwards, in heels. The best interplay between cream and Key Lime filling I have had thus far.

Crust: I try to resist superlatives, but this graham cracker crust bordered on art. The perfect mix of graham cracker and butter for a solid consistency, but the piewrights at Hester's also tried a daring departure from convention--they included tiny flecks of toasted macadamia nuts in the crust. The natural creaminess of macadamia worked perfectly with the other ingredients of the crust, adding a slightly different flavor that was delish.

WARNING: IF YOU ARE ALLERGIC TO NUTS, YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT TRY THIS PIE.

Another factor to note about this crust is the fluting on the back, which you can see in the picture. This isn't just a pinched crust; the fluting runs all the way down the back of the pie, so it's pretty even when it's cut and in a free standing slice.

Final thoughts: Amy's prediction that my quest would end with Hester's was partially accurate. It is, by a hair, the best pie I have tried so far (the excellence of the crust put it in the top spot). But the quest is not over; there are new pie worlds to explore!

BTW, Ben and Diana both concur that this is the best pie to date. All of us loved the macadamia flecks in the crust. Our only reservation was the possible concern about people with nut allergies; since Key Lime pie does not traditionally have nuts, people with allergies might not be alert when trying a Hester's pie. But for us non- allergic nut loving Etheridge/Naranjos, this was top-shelf Key Lime pie.

Tomorrow: Nuevo Cafe.

Key Lime Pie Review #6: Nuevo Cafe

When I called Nuevo Cafe to ask if the two critical questions (Do you carry Key Lime Pie? Do you make it yourselves?), I was told "Yes, we make our own key lime pies. But we're going to sell out. Do you want me to hold a piece for you?" Apparently, you have to make a reservation to get a slice of Key Lime pie from Nuevo.

Portion: Nicely thick, but narrow. Not the largest piece of pie we've had, but on the smallish end of satisfactory.

Tartness: This is where the reviewers split. When I had my first taste, I heard the faint singing of an angelic choir in the distance as the tartness washed over my tongue. This was, by a hair over Hester's, the most tart pie I have had. I thought it perfection. Ben liked it. But Diana felt it was a bit too tart.

Key Limeyness: Genuine, tart flavor of Key Lime throughout the filling and a genuine hunk of Key Lime on the top (only one of two pies thus garnished so far). Top marks in this category.

Creaminess: This was the first pie I had that pushed the Key Lime filling out in front of the cream; as you can see from the photo, it's solid Key Lime filling, with rosettes of cream in a row around the outside. Since I loved the tartness, I thought the delicious, made-in-house cream danced a perfect tango with the tartness of the pie filling. Diana thought the bites she had that mixed the cream with the filling cut the tartness of the filling enough to give it a wonderful flavor (but only when the cream was present). Ben rated the creaminess very highly.

Crust: Well made, nicely shaped blend of graham cracker and butter that beat out a steady, reliable bass line to the rhythm of the other ingredients. This was Ben's favorite crust. I liked Hester's slightly better because of the "extra" ingredient (macadamia nuts), but repeat my concern about the need for a warning sign.

Overall thoughts: Is the Six Points area of Corpus Christi the nexus of Key Lime Pie Awesomeness? Is there some sort of ley line running along Ayers street that brings with it pie perfection?

In case the location doesn't mean anything to you, the two places with the best Key Lime Pies I have had--Hester's and Nuevo Cafe--are both near Six Points and are actually in easy sight of one another.

I am still reserving judgement, but I have to say that the Nuevo Cafe Key Lime pie is my favorite, by a hair, over Hester's. Hester's did a fabulous pie; I just like Key Lime pies quite tart, and I liked the tartness of Nuevo Cafe's just a bit more.

This was a split decision. Ben said Neuvo Cafe is his favorite, but, to be fair, he has said every piece of pie he has eaten has been his favorite. Diana thought Neuvo Cafe's was quite good, but thought it was a bit too tart for her taste.

The Verdict(s)

If you like things tart, Neuvo is the winner hands down. This is my taste—Mexican pastry, European desserts, Key Lime Pies . . . desserts that have a touch of sweet but aren’t super sweet. If you like things a bit less tart and slightly more sweet, Hester’s is your bet. Either way, you get a heck of a piece of pie from either place.

Just as important, The Quest gave Diana, Ben, and me a summer of culinary adventure. I would bring pie home, we would turn all electronics off, and we would sit down, three forks in hand, tasting, discussing, and evaluating. We’d have in-depth conversations about pie crusts, and we’d search for words to describe a pie’s creaminess. Pies aside, it was a good way for the three of us to spend a summer together.