Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Dear Subway,

Your steak and cheese sandwich made my taste buds cry for justice. Your website claims it contains, "Hot steak, grilled onions and peppers, melted cheese and standard vegetables," but should be corrected to say, "contains failure."

1) "Hot steak" - The meat was taken from a bin and toasted to a lukewarm room temperature. Cheesesteak ingredients should be grilled on a well-oiled griddle, not getting a tan. This is as elementary as saying, "A pizza should be baked in an oven, not a microwave." If you're not going to grill a cheesesteak, don't call it a cheesesteak.

2) "Grilled onion and pepper" - The pepper and onion were raw, which is fine if I'm eating a salad, but I'm not. As a result (of that, and the lukewarm toasting), the steak was watery. Certain things are meant to be watery, like aloe, gruel, and the Florida Everglades. Sandwiches, not so much.

3) My friends have been saying, "You should know better than to order a cheesesteak at Subway," which, retrospectively, was good advice. Perhaps I shouldn't have had decent expectations, despite the steak and cheese picture displayed quite prominently on the menu. It still does your company a disservice when low expectations are proven correct. Having a reputation for doing something poorly does not justify doing it poorly.

I am disappointed. Your steak and cheese sandwich brings shame to its ancestors and should commit sandwich seppuku. Only then can its dishonor be atoned for.

(P.S. Much love to the customer service reps, who are the front line infantry against the seething masses of swarming, angry customers. You poor, poor, souls.)