Subway Sandwiches: Fast, Cheap & Healthy

[G01]

Seriously I love Subway(The sandwich shops, though I am also fond of the underground trains as well ). It's fast, cheap, and healthy. How can someone not love that place. I'm going there for lunch in a couple of minutes. Hopefully they still have their pastrami special going on.

What's everybody else's favorite Subway sandwiches? I usually go for the turkey or roast beef, but the pastrami is great, though a little on the $$$$ expensive side.

 

[Evo]

I don't care for subway, the amount of meat in their sandwiches is almost non-existant. Planet Sub has the BEST I've ever tasted. Unfortunatley they aren't available everywhere. If you have one near you, you must try one.

http://www.planetsub.com/flash.html

 

[G01]

HMMM, the sub on their website looks delicious. Too bad I don't live in the Midwest. The next time I'm out that way, I'll have to try one.

 

[gravenewworld]

once you have a real hoagie from Philadelphia (which is the official sandwich of the city btw), everything else will just taste disgusting. Nothing beats a Philly hoagie on a homemade roll covered in toasted sesame seeds that is just loaded with pounds of prosciutto, sopresatta, coppa, sharp provolone, and fresh romaine lettuce (not that shredded ice berg crap). No other city in America makes a hoagie compared to Philly, not even NY.The roast pork sandwich on an Italian roll with broccoli rabe and provolone is also awesome.

 

[G01]

once you have a real hoagie from Philadelphia (which is the official sandwich of the city btw), everything else will just taste disgusting. Nothing beats a Philly hoagie on a homemade roll covered in toasted sesame seeds that is just loaded with pounds of prosciutto, capicola, sopresatta, coppa, sharp provolone, and fresh romaine lettuce (not that shredded ice berg crap). No other city in America makes a hoagie compared to Philly, not even NY.The roast pork sandwich on an Italian roll with broccoli rabe and provolone is also awesome.

I'm from PA as well! In a similar respect to what your saying, I think PA as a state in general definitely has the best hoagies! Philly subs are great!

 

[Moonbear]

Yeah, ugh, Subway is a tiny bit of meat on an undercooked-tasting squishy bread. They're a last resort for a sandwich for me. We have one sub shop that is a bit like the subs I used to be able to get in NJ (that's what they try to imitate anyway), but they never put enough oil and vinegar on them, so they wind up dry even when I ask for extra. And, they look at me strange if I don't tell them exactly what to put on it (apparently, "everything including the hot peppers" doesn't make sense to people who didn't grow up in NJ). I just want to live in a place again where everyone knows that a #1 is (pretty much, what gravenewworld described) and they don't ask what kind of cheese to put on a sub because they know the only kind that should ever go on a sub is provolone, and it's not an "extra."

 

[gravenewworld]

To me, it is all about the bread. Any two places can import the exact same kind of meat and cheeses, but the rolls will always be different because of the water they use to make the bread. That is why you can't get an awesome hoagie anywhere else besides Philly and the surrounding areas because the water that is used to make the bread is different everywhere else.

 

[Moonbear]

To me, it is all about the bread. Any two places can import the exact same kind of meat and cheeses, but the rolls will always be different because of the water they use to make the bread. That is why you can't get an awesome hoagie anywhere else besides Philly and the surrounding areas because the water that is used to make the bread is different everywhere else.

It is the bread, but it's not the water. You can make a lot better bread than the stuff they make out here even without it. I make decent homemade breads. It's not quite what I can get in a bakery in NJ, but still better than the garbage they try to pass off as bread around other places I've lived (it's like Wonder Bread consistency in a lot of places here, and anyone can do better than that). The chains just add a lot of preservatives and stuff to the bread so that they can freeze it and ship the dough all over the country, and the kids in paper hats working the place can follow a simple set of instructions and get the same thing everywhere. The good shops have someone there who knows how to bake bread and makes it fresh daily there, not from some frozen dough.

I've been other places where you can get excellent bread too...just try traveling in Europe...everywhere there are corner bakeries with excellent bread (or at least there were last time I was there), and I found a wonderful bakery when traveling in Ottawa, ON that made bread just like what I was used to growing up with. So, it's not anything about the regional water or yeast like people try to tell you it is, it's about having bakers who know what they're doing and people willing to buy fresh daily rather than preserved, squishy stuff in plastic bags.

 

[Evo]

once you have a real hoagie from Philadelphia (which is the official sandwich of the city btw), everything else will just taste disgusting. Nothing beats a Philly hoagie on a homemade roll covered in toasted sesame seeds that is just loaded with pounds of prosciutto, capicola, sopresatta, coppa, sharp provolone, and fresh romaine lettuce (not that shredded ice berg crap). No other city in America makes a hoagie compared to Philly, not even NY.


The roast pork sandwich on an Italian roll with broccoli rabe and provolone is also awesome.

Mmmmmmm, you're making me hungry.

 

[usahockey]

Subway is pretty good for the price...if you want a big meal without spending much, you can't go wrong with the footlongs. Usually I get a tuna on that italian herb bread. I prefer the locally owned sandwich shops though, or Quizno's, though the cost is quite a bit higher.

 

[Crosson]

It totally depends on the particular subway franchise location that you frequent. Each subway near me has a different owner, and they all suck except for the one closest to my house. The bad ones serve stale bread, excess iceberg lettuce, and small portions of old meat. The one closest to me never has these problems, and so its a great place to go, very popular.

I notice a lot of you comparing subway to other sub shops. I am not sure if this is valid, for example I don't consider taco bell to serve tex-mex food for comparison purposes, contrarily they are the one and only vendor for taco bell products, which are their own class of food.

Similarly, other sub shops serve a different product then subway. In many cases I prefer their product, but IMO they don't compete directly with subway, the products are different enough.

 

[Astronuc]

once you have a real hoagie from Philadelphia (which is the official sandwich of the city btw), everything else will just taste disgusting. Nothing beats a Philly hoagie on a homemade roll covered in toasted sesame seeds that is just loaded with pounds of prosciutto, capicola, sopresatta, coppa, sharp provolone, and fresh romaine lettuce (not that shredded ice berg crap). No other city in America makes a hoagie compared to Philly, not even NY.

The roast pork sandwich on an Italian roll with broccoli rabe and provolone is also awesome.

I'll go for that! Be right over.


As has been mentioned, the quality of any Subway shop depends entirely upon the owner. I've seen great and not so good. At nearest one, they give us generous portions and the food is usually reasonably fresh.

 

[Danger]

Yank food always gives me the creeps. Everything is so different, from being able to order how well-cooked you want a burger (it has to be well-done here for safety reasons) to that fluffy butter crap that you get to put on rolls or whatever. That's just nasty.
The Subway here is great. You pick out what you want (and how much of it), and they put it on. I can get more than half a kilo of meat and cheese and whatnot in a sandwich for about $5. I can't keep up with exchanges, but I guess that's about $4.25 US.

 

[radou]

Over here, Subway is way too expensive.

I tend to make 10 times more delicious sandwiches for a 4 times lower price at home.

Btw, made me think of a South Park episode about this http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/MenuNutrition/Jared/jaredStats.aspx" .

 

[G01]

It totally depends on the particular subway franchise location that you frequent. Each subway near me has a different owner, and they all suck except for the one closest to my house. The bad ones serve stale bread, excess iceberg lettuce, and small portions of old meat. The one closest to me never has these problems, and so its a great place to go, very popular.

I notice a lot of you comparing subway to other sub shops. I am not sure if this is valid, for example I don't consider taco bell to serve tex-mex food for comparison purposes, contrarily they are the one and only vendor for taco bell products, which are their own class of food.

Similarly, other sub shops serve a different product then subway. In many cases I prefer their product, but IMO they don't compete directly with subway, the products are different enough.

This is definitely true. If you get a good subway. It can't be beat.

 

[Manchot]

My favorite place of all to get sandwiches is a little grocery store / meat counter in south St. Louis called LeGrand's. They have some truly unique and delicious sandwiches.

As far as chain restaurants are concerned, I'd probably put Penn Station first, and St. Louis Bread Co. second. (That's Panera to the rest of you.)

 

[Cyrus]

Yeah it can. Subway stinks.

 

[G01]

My favorite place of all to get sandwiches is a little grocery store / meat counter in south St. Louis called LeGrand's. They have some truly unique and delicious sandwiches.

As far as chain restaurants are concerned, I'd probably put Penn Station first, and St. Louis Bread Co. second. (That's Panera to the rest of you.)

I've never been to Panera, but I heard it's good.

 

[Cyrus]

Number 1 rule, if you want a sub, you go to a deli or a sub shop, not a fast food chain.

Subway, Quiznos, Panera, there all places to get food, but not good food.

If you want a burger, you go to a diner, not McDonalds.

 

[gravenewworld]

It is the bread, but it's not the water. You can make a lot better bread than the stuff they make out here even without it. I make decent homemade breads. It's not quite what I can get in a bakery in NJ, but still better than the garbage they try to pass off as bread around other places I've lived (it's like Wonder Bread consistency in a lot of places here, and anyone can do better than that). The chains just add a lot of preservatives and stuff to the bread so that they can freeze it and ship the dough all over the country, and the kids in paper hats working the place can follow a simple set of instructions and get the same thing everywhere. The good shops have someone there who knows how to bake bread and makes it fresh daily there, not from some frozen dough.

I've been other places where you can get excellent bread too...just try traveling in Europe...everywhere there are corner bakeries with excellent bread (or at least there were last time I was there), and I found a wonderful bakery when traveling in Ottawa, ON that made bread just like what I was used to growing up with. So, it's not anything about the regional water or yeast like people try to tell you it is, it's about having bakers who know what they're doing and people willing to buy fresh daily rather than preserved, squishy stuff in plastic bags.

I don't know, I would tend to think that water does have a slight effect on bread taste. I'm not saying that other places in the country/world are incapable of making good bread, it is just the fact that the bread made in and around Philly has a unique taste because of the water that is used. Have you ever tried Fiji water? Fiji water DEFINITELY tastes much different than water like Evian or Dasani because of the minerals and other stuff that are in solution. The water near Philadelphia is extremely hard, you can see all the build up it causes on all of the faucets. The hard water being used to make bread around here does have a slight impact on the taste. I bet that if you took the exact same bread recipe, and used the exact same baker, and the exact same oven, if you made the bread here in Philly vs. say in California it wouldn't be the same because of the water.

 

[G01]

Number 1 rule, if you want a sub, you go to a deli or a sub shop, not a fast food chain.

Subway, Quiznos, Panera, there all places to get food, but not good food.

If you want a burger, you go to a diner, not McDonalds.

I have to agree, but sometimes Subway is more convenient. My favorite sub place(not fast food, that is) is about 15 minute drive from school, while subway is right across the street from campus for me. And I don't think its as bad as some people are making it out to be. I'm beginning to think that Subway's around the rest of the country are abusing people and offering rancid meat sandwiches or something. My subways have always been kind to me

I definitely agree with the burger comment as well, especially since my friend got food poisoning from a certain unnamed (Wendy's) fast food chain.

 

[Cyrus]

Out of all of us, I think gravenewworld is the only one getting real subs.

Im not saying I don't go to subway, I do. But I know its not THAT great. Its just there, so I eat it.

 

[G01]

Out of all of us, I think gravenewworld is the only one getting real subs.

Im not saying I don't go to subway, I do. But I know its not THAT great. Its just there, so I eat it.

Maybe we should just live vicariously through gravenworld...

Gravenworld tell us more about these great subs, so we can pretend we're eating them!

 

[usahockey]

Well of course we all know that the best sandwiches come from those small, expensive, friendly, local delis...but when it comes to price and convenience, Subway or Quiznos is decent, and it sure beats a lot of other fast food type "restaurants".

 

[Cyrus]

Graveneworld is not the first person to tell me that the bread from up north is different.

PHAH! Quiznos is like $7+ bucks a sub! Thats hardly cheap. Thats nearly what you pay at a sub shop.

 

[pivoxa15]

I have tried all the subs but if you are going to eat there long term than I recommend the veggie delight with thousand island source. It takes a while to get one's head around to eat a vegetarian sub but once you have it, nothing can beat it. Offcourse, price comes into it as well, which makes it even more attractive. So if I was offered a free sub, I might choose one with meat in it but having said that I think the veggie delight leaves the best feeling in the stomach.

 

[gravenewworld]

Well of course we all know that the best sandwiches come from those small, expensive, friendly, local delis...but when it comes to price and convenience, Subway or Quiznos is decent, and it sure beats a lot of other fast food type "restaurants".

I would definitely take Subway or Quiznos over McDonald's or Taco Bell. The local shops are more expensive, but they aren't that much more expensive. To get a hoagie from the my neighborhood shop it is about $6-7.

Maybe we should just live vicariously through gravenworld...

Gravenworld tell us more about these great subs, so we can pretend we're eating them!

The best neighborhood shop where I live gets their rolls from this bakery (Sarcone's) in Philly. They make unbelievable bread everyday. The website is tacky, but the shop is awesome. Here is a pic of the bread I was talking about that is covered in the toasted sesame seeds.

http://www.weblaunchsolutions.com/sarconesbakery/frenchbread.jpg

A "small" hoagie is about 10" and will run you $6-7 and a large hoagie is massive and comes in around 20-22" and will cost about $11-12. Other hoagies that I like

The chicken cutlet sandwich (home breaded of course!) that comes loaded with about 2lbs of chicken and has spinach, olive oil, fresh tomatoes, sharp provolone, bacon (can get it without bacon), and sprinkled with parmesan.

There is also the veal cutlet with the homemade red sauce and hot peppers that is simple, but awesome.

Basically you take all the cold cut meats that you can't pronounce or know what they are like: cappicola, prosciutto, soprassatta, bresaola, Finocchiona, etc.

and all sorts of cheeses that are made locally from awesome local places like Dietz and Watson or imported from Italy and make different combinations.

I swear all the sandwiches must come with at least 1-2lbs of meat. I don't know how some of those places stay in business with the sandwiches they make because I know that if I bought a pound of something like soprassatta or proscuitto it would easily cost $20 for the type that they were using.

 

[Cyrus]

Damn, that's REAL bread... I want some.

 

[G01]

Those subs sound as delicious as that bread looks!

 

[wolram]

Over here in the uk, there is a standing (joke) that the people in the bakery
trade are magicians, they can make bread from water.

 

[Type 7]

Subway is an example of a once good thing being ruined by success. The bean counters with their economies of scale took over and quality naturally suffered. Have you heard the radio spots where at the end the announcer says, "Subway is owned by Doctor's Associates" or some such thing? What the hell is that? Ohhhh, it's owned by DOCTORS. It must be good for you.

Let me tell you something: There aren't many businessmen who pinch a penny with a tighter fist than doctors do. That's a fact.

I watch with wistful nostalgia when the 'sandwich artist' at my local Subway takes out that wrapped, weighed, portion-controlled, translucent meat wafer and mashes it on the bread like it was about to scamper away.

Back in the day, my friends, a Subway shop was a rare sight. We had a Sobik's here and there, but only one Subway that I knew of. It really was a treat to go there. Watching them make the sub was like being at Shakey's Pizza (What? Yes, Virginia, there was pizza before Pizza Hut.) If you wanted roast beef, they grabbed a handful of beef and spread it lovingly across the bread like a satin sheet on your honeymoon bed. Okay, that's the nostalgia talking, but my point is it was all that a sub should be.

My boss back then had grown up in Connecticut, or so I seem to recall, anyway she knew the founders of Subway. According to her, they were just Ben & Jerry type guys who originally called their shop the Pink Submarine. I bet that place had great subs!

Down the road from where I live, about fifty miles, is a tiny mom & pop (actually mom & daughter) sub shop that only sells one kind of sub, Italian. You can have it hot or cold, half or whole. That's it. No other choices. They have no advertising. A lousy location. No place to sit down. And only canned drinks. They have been in business for FORTY YEARS! Three generations of that family have been provided for by that one Italian sub. How do they do it? It's a great sub! The customers beat a path to their door.

Well, that's it. My biennial post. Give me a couple of years and I'll try to think of something else to say.

Type 7

 

[turbo]

My sister-in-law works at a local market and she makes the best sandwiches! 15 miles south of here, there is a Subway and a few other local sub shops (that roundly pound Subway), but this little town has the best sandwiches for 30 miles or so. Subway is crap, with very light meat, cheese, etc and a lot of lettuce, which is verboten in subs in Maine.

There are a bunch of Mexican farm-workers holed up at a dairy farm about 10 miles away, so the store has started offering jalapenos as an ingredient on their subs, and I get mine loaded with chilis. :!) :!)

 

[neurocomp2003]

burrito boyz in T.O...mmmm.

 

[JasonRox]

Subway isn't that healthy depending on what you get. Pretty much every sandwich is loaded with sodium.

Who said Subway is fast?! I find them to be ridiculously slow that I never eat there on my lunch because of it. You waste half your launch waiting in line. Cheap?! Oh, man. I disagree there too.

The bottom line is... you can't eat out healthy. Everything in restaurants is loaded with sodium and other not so great things.

 

[Data]

... and I found a wonderful bakery when traveling in Ottawa, ON that made bread just like what I was used to growing up with.

Happen to remember any details? I've been looking for a good one!