Mystery Pub: The Pink Pig – You Take a Piece of Meat with You

Meanwhile, we hear a song from acclaimed Vegas lounge act, Midnight Oil.

 

With tinkling ivories and a Sinatra swing, it’s a jazzy version of ‘Blue Sky Mine.’ But this searing satire and call for social justice is somehow oddly appropriate in a wine bar as an accompaniment to our Friday evening entertainment.

 

How exactly? I’m unsure.

 

Welcome to The Pink Pig on O’Connell Street in North Adelaide. It’s both mythic and material, and timeless but everlastingly preserved in 1986. Glimpsing myself in a mirror, I’m surprised to not see a boxy Ferris Bueller shirt and skinny leather tie upon my chassis.

 

Opened in 1973, it enjoys unparalleled affection. It’s comforted us all across the long decades, even Claire and me who’d between us have only visited once prior to tonight. One could argue that if it didn’t exist, it’d be necessary to invent it, or at least apply for the liquor licence. Nobody who draws breath can dislike The Pink Pig.

 

We take our (reserved) seats overlooking the street. There’s a small, round window and it’s like being in a submarine. ‘So, tell me about the times you’ve been here,’ I ask Claire, certain to evoke a rich response. Then, not for the first time, my wife surprises me by saying, ‘I don’t reckon I’ve ever been here.’ That’s our mission at Mystery Pub Inc: to right individual wrongs, or at least conspicuous hospitality omissions.

 

The tap beer is a house XPA. I say to mine host, ‘I’ll have one of these, thanks. Can I ask where it’s from?’ and am confident this is a courteous question, even at 5:15pm on a winter afternoon. Barkeep pauses dangerously, eyebrows narrowing, and this gives our exchange some minor Goodfellas menace. With vague caution he replies, ‘A craft brewer up north.’ Mmm. Up north, I wonder. However, I leave it alone as I don’t wish to get wacked. Especially on a Friday.

 

Without additional mobster subtext, I get Claire a sauvignon blanc.

 

Back by the window in our burnt-orange submarine the casino tunes continue with a hep-cat cover of Paul Young’s 1985 hit, ‘Every Time You Go Away.’ As the chorus begins, I giggle (internally). I know what’s coming.

 

Every time you go away

You take a piece of me with you

 

Of course, the celebrated mondegreen (misheard lyric) is:

 

Every time you go away

You take a piece of meat with you

 

And this will always be funny.

 

Out the back there’s sporting memorabilia including framed photos of (the nephew of a dear friend) Port Power icon Justin Westhoff, Arsenal FC, and a sweaty box (surely an acceptable collective noun) of Australian cricket teams.

 

The Pink Pig must’ve been compulsory for visiting Test sides and I imagine Beefy Botham, I.V.A. Richards, and Bob Willis among its enthusiastic patrons. Well beyond any modern curfew, Ian Chappell would’ve quarreled with each of them here over pork and pilsner.

 

As is now customary, Claire procures a cocktail (strawberry daiquiri) and having enjoyed the first, I opt for a second XPA. These, too, are satisfactory.

 

We need nourishment and could get an entire pig on a spit (with potatoes, seasonal vegetables, salads and sauces) for $1,200 but don’t as we’re 28 short of the suggested dining party of thirty persons.

 

Claire and I chat further about the pig on a spit, but I can imagine the barkeep saying, perhaps in a sinister way, that in selecting this option we’d likely need to, ‘take a (terribly substantial) piece of meat with you.’

 

 

 

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