The Elk and Pea, Braddon

Chipotle, ancho chilli and cumin lamb: a roasted whole lamb shoulder served with sweet potato puree, turtle beans, rosemary kipflers and banana chillis.Jeffrey Chan

Elk and Pea keeps a casual feel. It's open from breakfast to dinner, with a mix and match collection of furniture and seating arrangements. The feel is more grunge than studiously stylish, its design sense highly eclectic. The ceilings are lined with framed oil paintings and parts of the ceiling are so open that the Pink Batts form their own frame. One table is surrounded by a stylised bird cage, echoing the peacock theme that gives the Elk and Pea its name; another shared table is accessed by high stools. The outside section is sheltered and takes its style cues from '50s kitchens. All of which gives a sense that you can play dinner in a way that suits you.

The menu shares this relaxed approach – from snacks to big shared plates, from cocktails to rum, bourbon and vodka. There are a couple of Mexican beers on the list, too, since the theme of Elk and Pea is the food of Mexico. The menu offers tacos, sweet corn and corn chips with chilli beef and avocado. It offers pork ribs, jerk chicken and enchiladas. And over-the-top desserts, including a banana, chocolate, marshmallow and ice cream "taco", and cinnamon doughnuts filed with caramel.

We are defeated by one look at the dessert menu, have over-ordered on the rest of the meal, so if you're up for that kind of excess at that end of the meal you're flying solo.

Crispy chicken, slaw, honey and agave glaze taco with spiced pumpkin goats cheese, roquette, coriander aioli tacoJeffrey Chan

As for excess at the beginning of the meal, the corn bread ($9.50) is perhaps not the wisest way to start. The squares of corn bread are fried, making for quite a heavy snack. There's clearly no fear of the fryer in the kitchen. Much lighter is the "ceviche tostada" ($7), a snack of lime-cured kingfish, chopped fine and gathered on top of a little crisp round of tortilla, with slivers of crunchy papaya and radish, and sitting on some mashed avocado. It's likeable: lemony, salty, simple with no complicated flavours and plenty of crunch.

We follow with tacos ($7.50 each) – a "chicken, slaw honey and agave" tortilla and another of pumpkin, goat's cheese, rocket and coriander, taking the recommendation offered. The tacos come as soft tortillas, so they're easy to pick up and eat by hand. The chicken squares are fried and the mix pretty sweet, although it's a succulent enough bite. The pumpkin squares appear to have had the deep-fryer treatment also, and we would much prefer they hadn't. But the rocket, goat's cheese, and roast pumpkin seeds are lovely, again offering some simple, easy eating.

The meal hits its stride when it comes to the main – a shared lamb shoulder ($44) that is huge enough to serve as a meal for two by itself. The large hunk of meat on the bone is easy to love, all fall-apart and shreddy, with a charred sweet crust on the skin on top. It's a generous dish that embraces the pleasure of fat and slow-cooking. The shoulder is served on sweet potato mash with whole chillies roasted alongside, black beans, whole cherry tomatoes, and coriander. It's a colourful dish, with a pleasant heat. Alongside are fried potatoes with a "burned garlic" aioli, and it certainly tastes smoky. I'm not a big fan of the brutal wood smoke taste making an appearance in restaurants all over the place, but overall the lamb is a dish you would order again. It's an entire meal, it's simple, it's likeable, it goes with a big red or a Mexican beer and it's an easy casual dinner.

Assuming you're not on cocktails or beer, the wine list keeps things simple also. By the glass, it's not ambitious, aiming for cheaper-priced wines. A Coco sparkling from France, and an Angoves, 3 Drops Mount Barker Riesling, Toolangi Emanai chardonnay viognier – a fresh and uncomplicated wine – an Argentinian malbec, a Spanish tempranillo, and a couple from Victorian producer Are You Game. Sadly, the glasses come to the table already poured.

After all this, as I mentioned, dessert of the kind offered would be over the top, although we do think briefly about ordering a lime sorbet. But Elk and Pea is not really about a three-course meal; it's more a meal and a drink, and a relaxing hour in a place that has a kind of embracing hideaway feel about it. The food is not refined and doesn't aim to be. Instead, it goes for that easy smoke-and-fry appeal, and with that approach has clearly settled into its Lonsdale Street spot.

Address: 21 Lonsdale Street, Braddon