We'd never heard of Leura until our Blue Mountains tour pulled into the little town for a lunch stop. Bakehouse wasn't the place designated for lunch along the way, but we checked out a couple other reviews and decided to hike the extra few blocks to check it out.

The outside's pretty unassuming, and so is the dining room. The pies, though, they speak for themselves. We saw so much variety in that little shop that we started calculating whether we had enough time on the ground for the trip to come back again to try more selections.

We held back on that impulse, however, and limited ourselves to 2 savory pies and one sweet. We'll be darned if those weren't the best meat pies we've had on 4 continents!

Most especially, we will never forget the Kangaroo in a rich tomato goulash. We didn't see anything of its like anywhere else in Sydney (and we tried hard too). That ultra-lean meat was melt-in-your mouth tender and there was serious artistry in the veg and spicing that went into the rest of the stew to fill the pie. Then there was that buttery, flaky crust enfolding it all into a little dish of perfect, homey love that just warmed a body from the inside-out.

Good savory pastries are rare as hen's teeth back in our home town, and so commonplace in Australia that we almost started taking them for granted. The meat pies in Leura, though, were something so special that they'll be our first stop next time we fly halfway around the world for a visit!