Hi Cambe, personally, unless I am somewhere like SF, I agree with your exhusband. Did have fantastic food in Atlanta and Charleston in April however. Sure don't go to restaurants a lot in my city, the food leaves a lot to be desired.

Smoked Scottish salmon on a bun from Harrods take out.

I have to say I was very nervous when I went to England because of the bad press their food has gotten. I did not eat one thing there that wasn't really good food.

My favorites were the hot bacon roll sandwiches. I do not like crispy bacon and these were perfect! The bacon leaner and tastier. I love pork fat! I did not put anything on the ones I ate. They were yummy just as they were.

I liked that they put butter on sandwiches. I really liked the ham sandwhich I had, it tasted like good country ham. The kind I can rarely find where I live.

I love cucumber sandwiches, as well as cheese and "pickle".

This isn't English, I guess, but it is my favorite "tea sandwhich" You grate carrot and mix it with cream cheese, a tiny bit of chopped date, and walnuts, on a nice bread.

Makes me want to have a "tea" party again.

How about a delicious Marmite sandwich, lol! When my nephews would stay with us while my S&BIL would go on holiday, I was given strict instructions to feed those children Marmite sandwiches. I used to gag while they cheerfully ate them.

Tea sandwiches at Brown's were my favorite for years. I could afford them only every other trip.
Sainsbury's has some tasty chicken combinations we enjoy, especially when three varieties are packaged together. My faithful traveling companion and I find that splitting the package makes a pre-theater supper for two. Then we enjoy desert after the performance.

Gustav -

It's not that the food is different. It's that so much of it ranges from awful to unpleasant. (I;ve ben to europe 60+ times and the only places I;ve ever had more than the VERY rare bad food are england - and Venice - the latter for obvious reasons).

Now - I admit that the food is much better than it used to be - and there are many places where you can get very good food - but still too many where the old practices rule.

(When I first told friends about the toast chillers they thought I was making it up - really - is the toast to be eaten or used as a ninja star?)

Rare roast sirloin beef and English mustard or curried egg.

We have those toast chiller things in Australia too, called toast racks. For those who like to keep their toast crispy - its just a choice thing.

Marks and Spencer's - Roast Chicken. No Mayo! Has some sort of spiced yoghurt dressing thing on it instead.

I lived in the UK for 10 months and only discovered these two weeks before I left!

This was a charming thread until nytraveler rained all over it.

Back to sandwiches. Coronation chicken is my favorite.

This is a great thread but I worry about my cholesterol.

This is a funny thread! I didn't realise that many of these sandwiche fillings are considered "English" - but I am Canadain, and we have out share of British products on our shelves. American's don't ever put butter on sandwiches?? What would a turkey sandwich be without butter?

I was at a diner in LA, and requested "brown" bread with my breakfast. The waitress freaked out, asking where I was from - she was English, and said she hadn't heard anyone call "whole wheat" bread, "brown", since she left home. I'm always amazed and entertained by these little differences.

Well, this American grew up with butter on sandwiches, but my family has always been a bit unusual.

I was amazed when I was in England two years ago how I had no clue what many of the ingredients were in the sandwiches I saw. I wish I had had enough time to sample more of them. Another good reason to return!

Oddly enough, my favorite memory of a Brit sandwich was a prawn sandwich bought at a grocery store (prepackaged), expecting some sad, limp, 7-11 sandwich from the states... and finding (to my delight) a tasty meal instead.

And yes, I've had a wonderful bacon bap in London, and it was mouth-watering!!! (without any sauce needed)

On a side note -- can someone explain to me the differences between sandwiches, baps, butties and sarnies??

What can possibly compare with a proper bacon and egg sandwich, preferably from a van in a layby after a tough client meeting?

Properly cooked (ie non-crispy) back bacon, with a decent amount of fat. Runny-yolk fried egg (have Americans always had this ridiculous thing about inedibly hard-fried yolks, or is it a recent fad from the anti-cholesterol police to put people off eggs altogether?). English salted butter, melting with the bacon's heat, on white, untoasted bread.

Top the bacon with a bit of brown sauce (if it's HP you can even improve your French at the same time) and nice white pepper on the egg.

No wonder London gets more entries in the world's top 50 restaurants than Paris and New York combined. A chef has to be brilliant to top a decent bacon'n'egg sarnie.

Quite right Flanner.
A perfect egg should have the white set and firm and the yolk runny.
I'm always amused at these American gourmets. If you want really revolting food then the USA will fit the bill. Try something called chicken-fried steak.
Instead of a nice simple vinagrette dressing on salad, they have lurid pink concoctions that they call dressings.
If you've never tried what Americans call gravy, don't bother. It's like a white sauce but made without flavouring. I can eat most things, but that turned my stomach.
They can take something wonderful and simple like a pizza and turn it into a fattening, greasy monstrosity.
Of course you can get bad food in England, especially in tourist areas. Good English like good Italian food depends on good fresh ingredients. The bad reputation probably came from the post-War era when such ingredients were scarce.

GreenDragon

Sandwiches, sarnies and butties are the same thing. Sandwich is what the toffs call them. Butties are what we Northerners call them and sarnies are what they call them darn Sarf.
A bap also known as a batch or barm cake) is a large flat roll, the sort of thing that a burger is served in.

In a pub across from the train station in Windsor...brie and fresh cranberry. It was excellent.

Stilton cheese and walnut, I can't remember what else was on it, maybe cucumber?

Flanner, it's not the anti-cholesterol police, it's the salmonella police. A distressing number of Americans have an irrational fear of undercooked eggs, and so it has become difficult to find eggs (whether fried, scrambled, or omelettes) that aren't appallingly overcooked.

Egg (or what we in the US think of as egg salad) with tomato on rye bread, from Pret a Manger.