My previous girlfriend was also Dutch and used to this kind of lunch. Her employer sent her to London for a month, and she got used to expensive lunches. Spending a couple of pounds everyday on lunch, hoo boy, that adds up.
Might've been more palatable with better bread, but these were typical bad lunch sandwich bread buns.
That said, I can live on PB&J, especially with fresh PB and a good bit of toast.
Some offices have cantines and many of them are terrible. I was a Dutch office worker for 10 years in different offices and ate all kinds of different things. Now I work from home and continue to eat sandwiches almost every day. I just like them.
As for the Chinese food. You need to go into a big city and eat it. Don't eat Dutch Chinese food in small villages or suburban areas. Both Rotterdam and Amsterdam have amazing Chinese food. And I bet you never even tried Surinamese food before..
And so did I when I worked there, but I made my own. If I forgot to do so, I nicked one of my Dutch colleagues sandwiches - they couldn't stand the cafeteria ones either.
Chinese food was in Utrecht and Amsterdam - it bore no resemblance to the food you get in London, and you never saw ethnic Chinese eating there, unlike in London.
I'm not trying to be racist about the Dutch people - I enjoyed working in the Netherlands very much. Except for the food.
Most people that I know here in the Netherlands prepare lunch at home and bring it to work or school. I work from home now and still usually eat simple sandwiches for lunch so at least for me it's not about "no alternatives".
It gives me more time to go outside or stop working early - I honestly don't want to spend (at least) an hour going out just to have lunch and then a similar ritual in the evening for dinner.
A lot of people clearly like eating their lunch at their desk. I suspect it’s a cultural thing — while I enjoy the occasional meal away, most of the time I like eating at my desk.
In Germany or France, a sandwich from a supermarket isn't fresh, isn't good, and isn't interesting. In Britain, it's at least some of these things.
In France or Germany, you can go to a bakery and buy a sandwich, but that's slower and dearer.
Having never been to M&S but having a vague awareness that they exist, I didn't know what to expect, other than to think that if I saw Qantas advertising a new menu "co-created with David Jones" I'd be rather suspicious. I've since been to a M&S and discovered their rather extensive food section which is rather better than the average Australian department store.
(Of course, BA, like all other European airlines I've experienced, is distinctly average at best, and having to pay for M&S prepacked sandwiches is definitely part of that.)