Story makes no sense, I cant think of any restaurant where you are served a pre packed sandwich.

And even with a leeeetle English, a sandwich is a sándwich.

You mean the person who may or may not have been with her to order it didn't know the difference either ?
That simply makes it even more nonsensical.

I've often had a ploughman's and a couple of pints of Guinness for lunch, just the job for a busy afternoon in the City.

I don't suppose it would appeal to a Spanish girl though.

As mentioned on another thread,yesterday's left overs, vieja ropa would likely be better appreciated.

Hopefully Londons restaurants will catch on to keep the new influx of Spaniards happy by not binning their scraps and left overs.

Could do the world of good for their profit margins also.

Vieja Ropa? Not really a national Spanish dish as such - although it's eaten in the Canaries I'm told. Never seen it myself on the mainland, but I'm sure there are places you can get it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ropa_vieja

As for the sandwiches at lunch it's fairly common for UK workforces (or used to be) to take a short lunch break and get by with a sandwich or roll, in order to finish early at day's end.
I've been on company training courses years back where lunch would be put on, and basically you'd have a choice of sarnies, wraps, crisps and maybe an apple or orange. I don't remember the sandwiches coming in a packed wrapper though - they'd normally be on a platter as a "help-yourself" buffet.

I did not say that you should be eating English food, so stop twisting tings.

What I did say however in reply to your "we did not come to Spain to eat British food" comment was:

See my comment below.

It seems to me that only the Brits who come to Spain reject the food that they were eating for all their lives, whereas when we lived in the UK we still had Spanish food and in all my years I never heard one Italian or Spanish say that they were not eating anymore Italian/Spanish fare.

Because although they moved to a different country they still ate what they had always enjoyed, caldo, pasta, callos.

Or is this just another of the "I am integrated, I dont watch Brit tv, mix with Brits, and only speak Spanish" type of oneupmanship that is often posted on here/

It seems that way to me, because all us foregners in the UK celebrated our food, wines etc when we could find them.

It was a reminder of who we were, and although we had new and different lives, we did not feel the need to completely reinvent ourselves and shed out old lives like a snake with its skin.

Maybe it was because we were actually integrated and did not need to continuously remind ourselves that we were.
Just my take on things.

When we lived in England, we shopped at Tescos, now that we live in Spain, we shop at Mercadona.

We still buy the same things - chicken, meat, cod, apples, oranges, pears, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, carrots etc.

They taste no different to how they tasted back home.

For a treat back in the UK, we would eat Chinese, Indian, Italian, Thai, German, and Spanish. We do the same here, substituting English for Spanish as a 'foreign' dish.

There are a few of those that think we should be impressed that they claim to have no contact with Brits, or anything like Brit TV. Perhaps their idea of integration is to deny any contact with their previous existence and totally embrace everything Spanish. It´s as if they try to airbrush out the past, as if they are ashamed of it. Weird! ¿Plastic Spanish?

JL, I believe that moving to another country embracing the local food, menus, is part of the experience. As I have said before, because I am English doesn;t mean I should be eating roast beef, 3 veg and yorkshires every day - as a French trainee once told me he expected, as I woked him up a stir fry.

so many people in the CDS seem to spend half the weekend chasing round all the shops that supply English branded food, which costs a fortune before the cost of fuel is added. The Spanish brands are just as good.

I don't see it as re-inventing, just as adjusting, integrating may be, but I can vouch for an egg in England being the same in Spain and the same on a beach in Malaya. It just depends on what you do with it.

No one expects you to give up your lifestyle, your heritage, just because you are now living/working in another country. But you shouldnt become isolated either.

thats my take on it

I don't cook many traditional "British" dishes (sausages and mash with onion gravy being an honourable exception, and I'm partial to an occasional plate of egg and chips), but I didn't when I lived in the UK either so I have not changed my eating habits substantially since moving to Spain, other than now cooking from scratch rather than buying ready meals.

That's partly because of personal preference (I like a wide variety of food so cook French, Italian, Indian, Thai and Spanish dishes as well as some British) and partly due to circumstances. My OH is vegetarian so we cook and eat separate dishes and it isn't, therefore, worth it to cook a roast dinner or steak and kidney pie just for me (and for most of the year I wouldn't want to eat that kind of food in hot weather anyway). He does not eat anything sweet either so I don't bake cakes or puddings as I'd have to eat them all myself and although that might not be a terrible hardship it would be fatal for the waistline! Also, I don't live close to any shops selling British foodstuffs other than a very limited number in Eroski or Mercadona and I wouldn't be willing to make a long round trip just to buy them. When I go to the UK I enjoy eating the British meals people cook for me and always stock up on a few treats to bring back.

Who mentioned eating roast beef and yorkshires every day? I certainly didnt.

And as we eat on average 21 meals a week surely there is there is room for some of the English food that you enjoyed in the past, without haveing to state that you "did not come to Spain to eat English food", which I find quite strange as foreigners who arrive to the UK from other counties do not usually feel the need to say that, and stick to their home fare more often than not.

Integration is a vexed subject, and it must be of interest to all of us, even if we can't tell the difference between a banana bought in Spain and one bought in the UK.

I worry when people go overboard with their idea of integration, as JLFS said, when they stop watching British TV, and pretend to like chorizo, rather than good old British bangers.

You could find yourself becoming an object of curiosity in a totally Spanish community, the resident guiri with the funny accent. I wouldn't want to live like that, and I have tried it, and now prefer a more mixed community, where something like one in five people are guiris and the other 80% Spanish.

You still have a choice of who you socialise with, apart from my wife I haven't spoken to another English person today, but at least ten Spaniards. And I've watched Sky News and TVE1, I prefer Sky.

Thankfully food in the UK has improved and continues to do so. You can eat a diverse range of food in the UK these days and of quality that ranges from slop to the best (same as Spain). The fresh food overall is as good as anything you'll find in Europe as are our supermarkets.

As someone else said, the Spanish seem to have taken to burgers and Chinese food like a duck to water.

I for one would hate to limit myself to one 'ethnic' type of food but thankfully my tastes are catered for by the diversity of food in the UK

That's your opinion, but my wife wouldnt agree. She lived in the UK for 7 years up until 2007. She did like the Middle Eastern, Asian and Moroccan food in London, and was a fan of Waitrose, but there were certain things like tasty tomatoes or eggs that were difficult to get hold of. And the average British food served in people's houses is pretty terrible (sorry!), She is a fan of a good ENglish breakfast though but abhores Sunday lunches as she often comes across "crimes against meat"

Burgers and Chinese food, well sure. But it is usually chosen because it is cheap, not good quality.