In what can only be called a nut-sackingly good idea, Subway “Restaurants” has decided to start arranging the “cheese” slices on their sandwiches in proper tessellated format. That means (for those of who you cannot right-click-dictionary that shit) they will be arranging the “short sides of the triangle” inverted, so that one is pointing up, the next is down, and so on. This way, you get even cheese distribution across the entire surface of the sandwich instead of all one side.
Yes folks, they haven’t been doing this until now. – or rather they won’t be doing it until July 1st.
I find the timing interesting because I have been complaining about this to the sandwich “artists” for years, and had only recently given up caring about it (– that’s right, there’s 50 million plus litres of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. So until the new season of American Idol starts, this is what I care about). However, even more recently I had decided to swear off Subway altogether, so this new optimized cheese will go completely unappreciated.
As an avid (*cough* overweight) consumer of pre-processed, reheated, quickly-served (one might call “fast”) food products, I have noticed that the quality of meats is getting worse. In fact, in the past 5 years I’ve noticed that certain restaurants that tout themselves as the “healthy” choice are now falling prey to the “cheap meat” demon. Subway “Restaurants” is one of them.
I understand that they have margins to uphold, stockholders to please, and supply chains to adhere to, but you expect a certain level of quality above that of what is served to dogs. As some book once said, if you lay your house on sand, occasionally things go poorly. One might call it “foolish” to say, make a sandwich with inferior meat—oh WAIT.
I have been enjoying the Subway “Steak & Cheese” (cum “Southwest Steak & Cheese” cum “Cheesesteak”) sub since the first Subway opened in Orleans in 1993. I have refined the toppings to create what can only be called “the greatest edible sensation since Jesus”: Lettuce, Green Peppers and Onions topped with BBQ sauce, Southwest Sauce (since 2000 or so), and one line of hot sauce.
It is simply completely beyond all reason to ask a person with this level of appreciation for steak not to notice the steady decline in meat quality. Since the first time I stole money from my stepfather to pay for Subway, I have always taken time to honour my meat. Unfortunately a wonderful lunch sandwich containting nice, full cuts of steak has slowly descended into a mushy, shredded, mess. Oh sure most people still appreciate the fresh bread, but this is steak we’re talking about people.
As with most disasters, it started slowly before it really got bad. It started by simply making the pieces of steak smaller and thinner. Then, in probably the most obvious move, they stopped adding the little green onions to the steak. From there it was a slow steady decline to this disgusting, rancid meat I wouldn’t feed to that kid in The Road (f*** you I read the book three years ago!). The consistency of my latest Subway experience resembled something I have come to expect from places like Taco Bell. A hot, salty mess.
The chicken, while always having been that pressed/recombinated “chicken product”, is now a much slimier, lesser pressed/recombinated “chicken product”. They used to shape like a real cutlet and put fake grill marks on, just in case you weren’t sure what it was. Now it’s like they’re not even trying. It’s just this rubbery, white, mass, with a few black marks. It’s flavourless, cheap, disgusting “meat”.
So I now have to add Subway to the list of Restaurants in the “I know that if I eat this I am going to shit for three hours” category, right up there with the aforementioned Taco Bell, KFC (aka “Dirty Bird”), McDonalds…Burger King, Arby’s, White Castle & PF Changs (despite never having eaten at either)…and Pizza Hut. While appreciate their finally seeing reason when it comes to the layout of their cheese product, I can’t digest whatever it is they call “meat”.
