You can, of course, find amazing food in the Netherlands, just as you can in the US. But it's not like in Italy or France, where you can almost effortlessly find a good restaurant or a great purveyor of fresh ingredients. You have to work for it. And, having lived in Paris and various places in and out of the Randstad, I can say that Dutch kitchens are largely ceremonial affairs. We had one with a tiny convection oven that blew hot air on the refrigerator. You couldn't even fit a chicken in it.
but cheap food is easy to find in the Netherlands.
I'd be much happier if they replaced the slop line with bitterballen. Yes: nasty, mystery food guaranteed to hurt you, but that's already the case. At least this is honest. Raw herring, alas would be awesome, but too much to ask.
On sandwiches, Dutch sandwiches are too rule-bound. Either it's a loaf of wonderbread, with a single slice of meat or cheese every two slices of bread, or it's a "luxury sandwich", which needs exactly one of:
- Protein (meat, hummus)
- Cheese
- Something sweet (marmalade), because cheese
- Leaves of some sort
- Vegetable or tomato
Thus, yeah, never great. But hey, lunch break is only thirty minutes. Better pound that buttermilk (also missing from the Crown Lounge,)