Five Bar, Mount Lawley

Spontaneity is an uncommon occurrence for me.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, in fact quite the contrary it’s just that I can’t help but plan and organise things.  I hate the thought that an element of enjoyment is missed out due to lack of foresight.   But as I was running to my car during the heaviest part of the down pouring rain I got this burning desire to go out for the evening.  We both work long hours and often have hectic busy days so most weeknights tend to be a sombre experience of crashing on the couch, eating dinner and watching television.   I sat in my car drenched right through to the skin in my work clothes and phoned the boy who was still at work, half expecting him to decline the offer with protests of exhaustion and lack of motivation.  His immediate response was yes! Wa-toot!

On the previous weekend, a group of us had a pub crawl up Beaufort Street and on our way to the Flying Scotsman we all dropped into Five Bar for a refreshing beverage to quench us for the uphill stagger to the Scotto.   I remember making a mental note to return to try their tapas and so we did.

As you walk into Five Bar you almost feel like you are in someone’s oversized living room. There is a mismatched collection of lounge chairs, ottomans and crates to relax on and the interior is decorated with a similarly eclectic collection of lamps and oddities.  As I sipped on my Hendricks and tonic, I felt all the tensions of my day smoothly melt away.

The menu is quite small with the majority of the dishes designed to be shared tapas-style.  After requesting to our waitress for suitable gluten-free and onion free options, this menu unfortunately further narrowed down to a smaller handful of dishes.

Marinated olives

The marinated olives contained a crowd pleaser selection of pitted and non-pitted, black and green, and in all sizes from jumbo through to the teeny-weeny Arbequina olives.  They were all of excellent quality and very moreish.

Gingin Beef carpaccio with goat’s curd, pinenuts, EVOO and fresh herbs

The beef Carpaccio was dressed with cornichons, goat’s curd and capers, pine nuts, some fresh herbs and EVOO. The beef was sliced perfectly paper-thin but was a bit dry and lacked a little flavour.  This was somewhat compensated for by the tarty goat’s curd however that shouldn’t really be the aim of this dish.  A few extra lashings of olive oil may have improved this dish.

Grilled chorizo with lemon

We were informed after ordering the chorizo that it may contain onions so I gave this a miss and let the boy munch his way through the generous sized serve.  It seemed to be quite tender and juicy and disappeared with no complaints.

Slow roasted mushrooms with Danish fetta, balsamic and chives

The slow-roasted mushrooms with Danish fetta, balsamic and chives were definitely one of the better dishes.  I am a bit of a self-confessed mushroom addict.  I really love their rich savoury flavour; in fact it would be safe to say I eat them daily.  These mushrooms were roasted wonderfully.  The chef has managed to capture and enhance all that delicious mushroomness I enjoy and the subtle tang of the balsamic gently cut through these flavours to then be followed by the more lingering creaminess of the fetta.  We ended up ordering seconds!

The final tapas dish we ordered were the sweet potato frites served with a Moroccan spiced mayonnaise.  These were very tasty albeit also a tad oily.  Nevertheless I could have eaten more of them if I could fit them in!

We ended the evening with a duo of macarons – vanilla and coffee.  After overindulging on some amazing macarons from Choux earlier in the week, unfortunately these ones were a bit of a disappointment.  I enjoy the contrast of the crispy outer shell with the chewy nearly gooey centre.  These ones were consistently chewy all the way through and showed none of the contrast in textures macarons are meant to have.

Given the popularity of tapas in Perth at the moment we are spoilt for choice.  I walked away from Five Bar thinking there are better quality options for the price we paid and probably wouldn’t go out of my way to return there.

Venue 8.5/10  Service 7.8/10  Food 7/10