The Tuesday Taste: Subway Sandwiches

 

Reading the draft

wasn't sure where to laugh

The language wasn't

very refined

Skipping ahead

she wasn't sure where it led

The patterns

were too hard to find 

Another Tuesday.... another Taste. The less said about the previous week, the better.

In many ways, a sandwich is a lot like a city. You have these different ingredients with their different flavours, different origins, all layered together and working within a bready shell. Cities are usually surrounded by bread, right?  

The origin story of Subway begins in 1965, off in Bridgeport Connecticut, when Fred DeLuca borrowed a thousand dollars from family friend Peter Buck (not the guitarist from REM) to start a sandwich restaurant. The rest of the tale is pretty obvious: the restaurant was a hit, aggressively expanded into franchising and became a recognizable brand by the 1980s/1990s, then their growth completely exploded thanks to intensely marketing themselves as a "healthy" fast food option... especially brought home by their spokesman being a dude who lost hundreds of pounds eating their food (and I'm sure that dude turned out to be a totally normal person and definitely not some creepy weirdo sex criminal....)

Full disclosure: I've never liked Subway all that much. I grew up on Mr. Sub, really liked Quizno's when it was cheap and located in the building I worked in (or actually still in Toronto), and honestly if for whatever rare reason I'm specifically craving a sub sandwich I'd strongly recommend Belly Busters over any of them (just open one more location and I can review Busters for a Taste, in fact).

However... I've already reviewed Mr. Sub and Quizno's as well just before that last location departed downtown Toronto forever. So... I had to properly review Subway at some point. Way back in the early days of the Taste I sampled Subway's "Sidekicks", an assortment of mini potato bun sandwiches they still offer... but those weren't actual submarine sandwiches. So... against all better instincts... here we go into Subway.

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I went for their "Chicken Bacon Peppercorn Ranch" which at least sounded interesting. Apparently I could've made it "crispy" chicken for an extra three bucks! I decided against it, seeing as this thing was already about to run me thirteen bucks and if I'm buying just a sandwich for seventeen goddamn dollars or more, it's gonna be from an actual restaurant or well regarded food stall. Still, I had decent hopes that this could, maybe, actually be somewhat okay. 

Then I saw the chicken they use. Hooooo boy. Look, minced up/pulled chicken can be delicious in a variety of ways and situations. But the key to making that good is A: the right seasonings, cooking method and (if you like) sauces. Or like B: a chicken salad type concoction, where you use a lot of mayonnaise and/or egg to keep the texture together and creamy. This was nothing like either of those... more like somebody had just thrown various "chicken" parts through a shredder and let it sit around and dry out... then added water to keep the moisture. Tasty! Though to be honest, their chicken breasts didn't look a whole lot more inspiring... rather like beige hockey pucks.

Lets get into the sub sandwich itself. They didn't have any cucumbers (not a good way to win me over), their green peppers were sliced about as thin as envelopes and the lettuce had that sad, faded morose green colour to it. Thirteen bucks please! To be fair, their bacon looked and tasted okay... a bit like that thin bacon you get on a Wendy's burger... not a lot of crispiness to it but you're at least aware of it and it tastes like bacon. 

That is about as much praise I can give this "thing". The chicken, unsurprisingly, was horrifically bland. The texture resembled something more akin to tuna and just like eating some fish that's been sitting out too long, my stomach did a couple of cartwheels to protest this assault upon it. The problem, aside from the blandness, is that most of what you taste in this awful thing is that chicken. There's nothing else to it! And any notable flavour that does rarely emerge from this soulless void disguising itself as a sandwich is quickly sucked back into that sad oblivion. You know how when you eat something really good, the tastes and sensations linger in your mouth for a pleasant moment before slowly dissolving? With most fast food the opposite is true: you get a quick fix of taste but it vanishes almost immediately... making you want another bite that much quicker. McDonald's, for me, holds the crown at this... although Subway has gotta be close. I do like fast food, honestly, but I also like for things to have actual flavour and for said flavour to last longer than it takes to blink. 

Also, for a sandwich with "peppercorn ranch" in the title you rarely even get a hint of that (hey Subway, you know you can cook chicken with peppercorns together, right?). As for the bread... well I've always hated Subway's bread (as will happen when you chip a tooth on it once), but I thought this time I'd go for the plain white bun instead of my usual whole wheat go-to with subs. I doubt it would've mattered, because their bread still sucks. Its consistently stale, aggressively tasteless (even if not fresh from the oven, good bread still tastes like something) and its crusty edges always leave me wanting to throw the bun out halfway through. This really was the biggest restaurant chain in the whole goddamn world recently? Seriously? Dear god...

 

Overall... look you don't need me to tell you that Subway is pretty terrible. Maybe if I'd gone for a more traditional type of sub, with sliced meats and whatnot, this particular experience might've approached something closer to bad instead... but even that pushes optimism to a brink. This will be the last time I ever go to one, and the only two times I've eaten Subway in the past decade have been just for these reviews.  

Still, no matter what combination of toppings or bread or toasted or whatever you try... Subway will consistently underwhelm you. Maybe the service will be pleasant... there are surely worse and less healthy fast food options out there... and maybe for some folks Subway is just a reliable and convenient "know what you're going to get" food choice when you're on the go and don't have the time to prepare something. All that is fair and true perhaps, but you can also look at a sandwich and just strive for it to be something better, no? Something worth savouring, enjoying, with well prepared ingredients and high quality all working together within the bun to excel... instead of settling for a status quo with crusty edges crumbling and getting discarded into trash bins? Maybe someday, maybe... but in the meantime, Subway sandwiches is indeed the John Tory of fast food outlets. 

 

Burnt Ends -- It's been a while since I wrote anything (at least I have a good excuse for this dearth of recent work) but! I've got a bunch of stuff coming down the pipe later this week. One review each day, Wednesday through Friday, in fact, in addition to this one you're already reading. So stay tuned for that! Trust me, they'll definitely be of a higher quality and ambition than a freaking Subway sub. 

 

Last Subway Stop -- Ah... I couldn't quite leave this talk of Subway sandwiches be without dropping this in here. Take it away, Johnny!

 

 

 

Tuesday Tune -- These awesome dudes released a new record just this past Friday and their consistency after all these years is staggering. This still might be their best record in a decade anyhow (maybe somebody should write a review of their discography?) and so enjoy this awesome tune from it. I might have to go buy a physical copy soon.

 

   

That's it for me! Until next week... stay cool, stay sharp out there, eat some good food (as in, not what I reviewed here) and most importantly, don't spill that mustard.