food

In defence of fast dinners.


The eating habits of Taylor Swift is not a topic I think about often. 

The real-life inspiration behind her new vault song? Sometimes. 

The latest man she's dating? Often. 

The curious addition of Hugh Jackman to her revamped girl squad? Literally, every second of every day. 

But what she eats, when she eats, and how long she eats for never comes front of mind. Until now. 

In a hilarious investigation by Vulture, the culture platform have visited the restaurants the 'Blank Space' singer frequented on a recent few nights out in New York City. 

Between Eras tour dates, Taylor has been doing two things: dating football players with nice faces and large shoulders, and eating at boujie restaurants with various famous women. 

And it was her experience at one NYC restaurant, Emilio’s Ballato, which she visited with new revenge pal Sophie Turner and longtime sidekick Blake Lively that piqued my interest.

When Vulture's Rachel Handler asked an "older Italian man smoking a cigar" who she presumed was the manager what his experience with Swift was like, he replied: “What can I tell you? She eats, she pays, she gets the f**k out.”

Sure, this manager might have just been messing with the Vulture writer. In other reports, a source claimed the women stayed at the restaurant for four hours... a very very long time indeed. 

But even so, it got me thinking: why was this quote about Taylor eating, paying then leaving so noteworthy that it was used as Vulture's headline?

What is so wrong with a fast dinner? 

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I come from a family where we don't mess around when it comes to eating in restaurants. 

We arrive.

We order within the first 10 minutes. In most cases, I've pre-scanned the menu online to improve efficiency. 

The food comes after about 20 minutes.

We then eat. We eat fast. Some onlookers might presume we dislodge our jaws to gulp down our food like rabid pelicans. 

Then we pay and leave.

We're gone quicker than a Chinese restaurant's lazy susan has a chance to do a 360 rotation. 

A dinner with my family will last an hour — at the most. Like, an hour is slow. My family's record is getting in and out of a restaurant in 30-minutes flat. We've got better places to be, like for instance, at home. 

I can admit that sometimes the dinner is the night's event. If I'm going out with a big group of friends, I will stay for around two hours (unnerving, I know), but that's usually because there's alcohol to be consumed and gossip to be shared.

The eating itself does not take up much time. My family are not big drinkers so our dinners are commonly sober ones. We come to a restaurant to eat — that's all. We could talk but we could also talk back home in the comfort of our pajamas, or in my dad's case, a different business shirt. 

Sometimes you just want to order, eat, pay and leave, or in Taylor Swift's case, get the f**k out. 

After all, her hunky sportsman — and Hugh Jackman?? — are waiting. 

Feature image: Getty.