Last week, to celebrate a big occasion, my pie loving lady friend (who will from this point on be referred to simply as “Lamb”) and I decided to try somewhere new – well at least new to us. We are on Gertrude Street every morning having coffee at either De Clieu or the Gertrude Street Enoteca (depending on the day and the mood), and although I’m a relative new kid on the block, I would not hesitate to pat myself on the back and claim that I do get around a fair bit. Añada was one of those places on the strip that had only partially registered in my consciousness but that I assumed I might not make it to before my inevitable departure from this city of love/city that I have fallen in love with. So the decision to go there was sort of a surprise move fuelled by this interaction: “I feel like tapas and really good wine,” I said. And Lamb, a native to the region and a much more broadly experienced Melbournian, responded, “Let’s go to Añada.” I was in no position to argue.
 
So on a very pleasant Wednesday night we showed up and took up what would be our perches at the bar for the rest of the night (best place to sit if you go out to eat too often and are not interested in formalities, want to watch all the action on the floor and backstage and get the best tips for what to eat and drink – also for making jokes with bartenders and getting free drinks for keeping them entertained, not in a sleazy way). My eye was immediately drawn to the wine cooler, temperature set to 16 degrees, which told me that they take themselves seriously and that I would, at the very least, enjoy a glass of red wine (or a few) that wouldn’t put me to sleep.
 
After a quick chat with the extremely lovely bartender/server who absolutely made my night (I hope we at least provided some amusement in return), plates that he and Lamb had agreed upon started appearing. Charcoal grilled Quail laid on top of pomegranate seeds, dill and freekeh; king prawns from WA, also charcoal grilled, with salmorejo and pleasantly contrasting crispy pancetta; something about beef and a potato cake that was wonderful and not as heavy as it sounds. All good and something new, which the bartender led me to believe is the restaurant’s ultimate objective.
 
The absolute highlight of my evening was the moment of my surrender to pork belly. I had never been able to justify eating straight fat – I’m from the Upper East Side in New York and grew up surrounded by women who eat diet coke and hazelnut coffee with Splenda for breakfast, lunch and dinner so I needless to say I have a few hang ups. I know it’s delicious and all the flavour is lodged right in there, but I didn’t eat sour cream for years (even on tacos) because the word for it in Hebrew (yup, New York Jew) literally translates to “fattener”. Just a little aside and FYI, I acknowledge the arbitrariness of these hang ups and hypocrisy in my excessive and guiltless consumption of cheese, chocolate and wine. I will never stop eating those things. I can’t live without them. Maybe it’s the texture of how it’s often prepared (softer than it is crunchy) that sets me off. Maybe I’m more put off by the semantics than the object or act itself, but the point is that I’ve been avoiding it and, to be honest, I’ve resented it.

So as you can see, this conversion is kind of a big deal for me. He convinced me because he told me I didn’t have to eat it if I didn’t like it, that he would take it back and eat it himself and that I didn’t even have to swallow it. Loathing picky eaters and almost as repulsed by waste as I was by crackling, I felt like I had little to lose. I was also on my third glass of pleasantly chilled Riojan Tempranillo, so I was also feeling a little loose.
 
It came out and was placed in front of me. For some reason, Lamb had decided that it was the right time to go the bathroom just as it arrived so I was left there to face it alone. Just me and the pork belly. I finished my glass of wine, motioned for another one and sliced through the crackling and the tender meat and took my first bite. It was gone by the time Lamb came back from the bathroom. I was picking crackling out of my teeth, savouring the flavour while she took her time, taunting me with each bite and not so subtly shrugging her shoulders in the direction of “I told you so”.