Published by Swiss James on 08 Jul 2009 at 08:09 pm
sandwiches
(forgot to bring my camera today)
One of the Chinese guys I work with spent 6 months at our UK office. He complained that everyone ate sandwiches all of the time, which I thought was a bit rich coming from a country that’s been eating rice three times a day for 5,000 years.
I’m beginning to see what he means though, here’s the schedule at our place:
9:30am Breakfast sandwich van arrives. Has hot bacon & mushroom sandwiches. Packets of brown sauce 5p extra.
10:20am Second sandwich van arrives. Selection of cold lunchtime sandwiches is apparently much better, it’s the choice of the discerning luncher.
Midday Everyone sets off to local supermarket which has a wide range of sandwiches and wraps (nobody buys the wraps).
12:40pm Lunchtime sandwich van arrives.
I’m having couscous in protest.
Do you work at a construction site? I don’t have a sandwich van coming multiple times to my work? I’m a little jealous, especially if it has dimpled, shiny metal paneling on the exterior.
I can’t abide a single mushroom, let alone a mushroom sandwich. I don’t trust them for a second.
As a concept piece, your sandwich graphic is brilliant. (I assume it’s a sandwich, and not some futuristic alien spacecraft.)
you can’t beat a nice sandwich, i couldn’t eat them more than twice a day though.
well, except at christmas
I would give my left nut for a hovis granary value-mild cheddar cheese sandwich with country life butter. Once, twice or three times a day. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT ‘TIL IT’S GONE!
Granary bread??? Look out lads, we’ve got a posh one here!
Hovis is the bread of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoise. All its supporters must be supressed with utmost vigilance!
I don’t know if that’s an English thing only. My American colleague in Hong Kong (which has the most diverse, plentiful and amazing lunch options from most parts of the globe available in Central) spent 2 years eating sandwiches in a regular rotation from three different shops. One of which was a Pret A Manger.*
*Not that I wouldn’t murder a Pret A Manger breakfast sandwich now and again – especially if they had one in Shanghai.
if it was the south, they’d eat the wraps- we are all wrap mad in London! I can see five places to buy sandwiches from my classroom window here on Oxford Street……..yum!
That’s because the South is all filled with mincing poofters with 2,000 pound watches. Oh, hey, WoAi.
T’s getting a real mean streak isn’t he? Come on T- group hug.
Just to clarify: A workmate who visited the UK said that all he saw when there was the eating of sandwiches. Yet, the sandwich van you describe visits your work in China. How many more sandwiches do we eat in the UK to make that schedule look ridiculous?
I would also like to point out that surely the Yanks eat more sandwiches than anyone when you include McDonalds, Burger King, Hot Dogs (essentially a sausage in a bun), tacos (a flour wrap with pigs brains within), bagels, pretzel sandwichs (2 pretzels snadwiched by some peanut jelly) etc etc.
Scarletti- I’m back in the UK, do try and keep up would you?
SJ – I’m just learning as I’m going along.
What’s the pink stuff in your drawing? Is that legit part of a food group?
Ps. Is that a MS Paint job? Most eggcellent if it is!
Miss Jane, Swiss James once told me that his favourite sandwich is lipstick and astroturf, served on Warburton’s white, with the crusts cut off.
T – A few points to note:
1. My watch was 2600 pounds, please pay attention.
2. Do you even know what “mincing” means?
3. It’s Pret, not Pret A Manger.
4. I’ve been away a while but I don’t think we call burgers and hotdogs sandwiches (oh that one is for Scarletti).
Ah you southerners…granary is not for posh people, it’s for countryside folk who can’t afford white flour so we mix stones and soil in to the dough to try to give our teeth something to grind against…
WoAi -
1. Mincing is effectively daintly – as if you were wearing slippers two sizes too small and were Japanese
2. It’s Pret A Manger in Hong Kong
3. Tacos aren’t sandwiches. Otherwise everything would be a sandwich. and that would be an affront to the earl of sandwich. Oh that’s for Scarletti.
T – Yes, you’re quite right, some stores have been rebranded as “Pret” but not (yet) the HK ones.
I would give my right nut for a Quizno right now….
Quizno’s is okay, but I submit to the audience, for a chain sandwich store, there is nothing better than Potbelly Sandwich works.
http://www.potbelly.com/
I would gladly commit wanton acts of violence and mayhem if they were to open a Potbelly in Shanghai.
Oh for a Wensleydale and Beetroot sandwich…on granary. None of the ingredients to make this are available in Korea :(
@David’s first comment… I got laughed at the other day when I told the inlaws I didn’t eat mushrooms because I didn’t trust them.
I thought this bizarre reason for avoiding the shrooms was mine and mine alone but you have somewhat stolen my thunder. Mmmm, I might start a facebook support group to see if there are more mushroom distrusters out there.
What’s with the distrust of mushrooms? Have you both been hurt by a mushroom? Do you need to talk about it? Not all mushrooms are the same, I am sure there are some that are worthy of trust.
Personally, I have only had one bad experience and it was not the mushroom’s fault. Years ago, I was eating at a Cantonese restaurant in CA, and was very nervous of the ’strange’ looking delights on offer. I asked my wonderful DH to taste test everything for me, so I would not make a fool of myself in front of his family. Finally the mushrooms arrived – hurrah, something I recognize and love. DH gave them the all clear, but someone had stuffed them with scallops – EEEWWW!!! I cannot abide seafood. I could taste it for days… Took me a while and a lot of therapy, but now I am back to a place of trust.
I don’t understand this distrust of mushrooms either, mind you I do feel quite emotionally distant towards yoghurt
Mushrooms have a sinsiter aspect to them due to their squidgy texture and dull colour. Just what do they have to hide? Eh?
Was at a friends place the other day, and on his balcony high up on the 20somethingth floor, he has grass.
Real grass!
Grass that you can walk on and not get shouted at by some jumped up security guard wannabe with a badly fitted uniform (although there are landmines).
A 5×5metre patch full of green 2″ unmowed goodness, which some poor sod(sic) had to carry up a gazillion flights of stairs.
Why is that interesting you ask?
Well, besides being a repository for his doggys less than appetizing poop, it also had a round mushroom ring growing in an undoggied area.
Being the eager mycologist’s that we were, we immediately identified these as magic mushrooms.
Unfortunately being the scaredycats that we are, we were too pussy to actually try them*
*The websites which identify these kind of things are covered with dire warnings about liver failure, death and other fun side effects.
Which goes to show, David is 100% right.