I'm sitting in the open-air dining deck out the back of Northcote Social Club. My friends are late but I don't care. It's a warm night, the sun is lazing around in the sky beyond the pub and I'm hanging with a frosty beer.

The promising new menu in front of me is stacked with button-pushing phrases like "popcorn chicken", "chilli cheese fries", "jalapeno poppers" and "pork belly burger". Mmm, pork belly burger. There's also good awareness of vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free needs.

The music is good, and I'm not talking about the guitar-and-drum scramble that ambles from the sort-of-soundproofed band room that's at the heart of this iconic venue. I mean the chef shaking a metal bowl of hot fries in the kitchen just past the bar. The crisp chips, salt shower and steel dish: it's high-hat and drum roll and, even better, this is percussion you can eat.

Time for company, so I call for jalapeno poppers, fat little bullets of green chilli, deep-fried so their cheese filling turns oozy. I am all for a double danger dose of spice and molten dairy so I'm almost sad when my friends arrive and I have to share.

We order up and bring our number – lucky 88 – back to the table, along with cutlery, napkins and condiments. The food soon rolls along: mini prawn tacos that neither delight nor offend, a decent beef burger with all the expected trimmings, a chicken parmigiana​ that does the job and a "Mexican slaw" that's more nutritious than delicious.

Do you get the feeling I'm not impressed? You're right. The menu that looked exuberant and contemporary an hour ago now feels a little try-hard and cynical. The food simply isn't as good as it sounds.

Part of the problem is that this kitchen – and many others – seems to believe that the road to heaven is paved with jalapenos, chipotle chilli and smoked paprika. They are fine ingredients but they don't magically make average food awesome.

Still, the deck is an amenable all-weather place to gather with a gang (kids welcome) and I was satisfactorily fuelled for the gig. And the chips? They are as hot and crisp as they sound.

Rating: Three stars (out of five)