The Pony Club

The Pony Club was the word on the street a year or two ago as far as all things tapas were concerned.

Having never eaten there, I thought it was time to finally give it a try, especially considering the boom in smaller tapas bars springing up throughout Perth of late.

I was really expecting the Beaufort Street restaurant to have bedded down its style and set the benchmark high for those new kids.

Arriving on a Saturday night at 6.30pm with a group of friends, we were the only people there and the service was helpful and attentive, as to be expected.

We ordered a couple of tapas to get us started - the grilled chilli squid with tomato and aioli ($17.90), the pumpkin crepes with brown sage butter ($15.90), chorizo ($13.90) and stuffed leeks ($14.90).

Gee what a pity. The squid was bland and sour and, considering it was 'chilli squid', it was surprising to taste no chilli whatsoever. So many other places in Perth do this type of dish fantastically well.

The tapas winner of the night goes to the crepes; they were light yet creamy and very tasty. The chorizo looked great on the plate but tasted more German than Spanish. The leek was truly awful; it tasted burnt and far too salty.

So after a lacklustre start we were hoping some shared mains would really get the palette firing.

The twice-cooked pork belly, mustard fruit, roast eggplant ($27.90) was stunning. It was a lovely smoky dish, well cooked, oily and luscious with lingering flavours.

The chermoula spiced lamb cutlets, pearl cous cous, orange and saffron aioli ($31.90) was really nothing special; well cooked yes, but the dish sounded much more exotic than it tasted, unless you count over-powering garlic as being exotic!

The chicken, apple flambe, mahon, sage pesto, jamon with white bean puree ($27.90) was a case of a lot flavours failing to fire. Admittedly, the pesto shone through and was tasty but the chicken was a little tough and dry.

By the time our mains arrived (around 8pm), the restaurant was full and the service was starting to suffer. An extra wine glass was requested but failed to arrive after 15 minutes (we had to ask again). Upon finishing our bottle of wine, we waited 10 minutes before having to ask to see the wine menu again (a welcome change though to having a wine list thrust in front of you after the bottle has just run dry).

It also took a very long time to clear the many plates on our table ... staring at 10 mostly-empty plates on a full stomach while trying to digest it all is not pleasant (nor does it encourage the idea of another plate - dessert).

Needless to say with the plates cleared away we were tempted by dessert. Dessert done well can really turn a hit and miss affair into a big hit.

The churros ($13.90) were a given, with the little pastry donuts themselves sweet and crisp but the chocolate sauce very bitter, and not in a high quality way. Even on second and third tastings, it was still not making me (and my palette) melt.

The accompanying coffee was not great, and tasted extremely burnt, like most that get served in restaurants around town. But kudos for only charging $3.50 for an espresso.

The wine list was a little minimalist, for a Spanish tapas bar. Not much imagination at all.

We ordered the 2008 Carmen Carmenere from Chile ($36) and the Lasendal Garnatxa ($70) from France. The Chilean wine was robust, ripe and tasty, and a much better choice than the more-expensive French number.

On the surface the Pony Club has so much going for it; it's in a great location, is warm and inviting with an eclectic mix of old world charm and modern chic.

It provides an opportunity to graze in the company of family and friends in a relaxed atmosphere.

It is just disappointing that the one thing it should really do extremely well – tapas – was a big miss on the night we dined.

- with Joanne Petch