Subway’s beefed-up sandwiches are hit or miss

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And so that brings us to the brand’s latest apparent efforts to appeal: This week, it introduced meat slicers in 20,000 locations nationwide, a move the company described as the culmination of a two-year plan in which it provided the equipment to franchisees and worked out the supply chain that would allow it to offer the magic of fresh-cut proteins.

It also debuted four sandwiches to showcase the meats coming off those slicers. They’re meat-forward, to say the least. The “Titan Turkey” and the “Grand Slam Ham” contain a third more meat than the classic versions, and the dauntingly named “the Beast” boasts a half-pound of animal flesh, as layers of pepperoni, salami, turkey, ham and roast beef. Rounding out the quartet of newbies is a beefed-up roast beef paired with a garlic aioli. All four employ a double portion of provolone cheese.

At a visit to a local Subway outpost to collect my bounty, the aforementioned meat slicer was prominently displayed behind the counter. Subway says the meats will be batch-sliced throughout the day, instead of to-order. But I must have missed one of the daily slicing shows, since the gleaming piece of equipment sat idle and spotless. I wonder whether the move to install them without actually giving the customer the razzle-dazzle of watching their meats freshly prepared — the way it’s done at rivals such as Jersey Mike’s — is worth it. Sure, the slicing ritual might just be pure theater, but isn’t that the point?

As for the meat that ostensibly rolled off the slicer and landed in the four sandwiches I ordered, it was difficult to determine whether it was an improvement over the pre-sliced stuff that had preceded it, since I couldn’t make a head-to-head comparison. At least I didn’t detect any of the slimy texture that sometimes accompanies sandwich meats. And before we get into how the sandwiches tasted overall, let’s talk for a minute about their heft, which I immediately noticed as my plastic bag strained on the trip from the counter to the car.

These guys are as hefty as a Hollywood actor bulking up for his latest superhero role. People, we’re talking Zac Efron levels of swole.

Of course, I should note that the pumped-up fillings come with calorie counts that would make a nutritionist cry. The Titan Turkey clocks in at 980 calories for the foot-long size, while its less brawny sibling, the classic regular turkey, rings in at a reasonable 540. (It’s actually not correspondingly pricier — at my local Subway, the Titan was $9.59 while the regular turkey was $8.89.) The Beast, unsurprisingly, is the most alarming of the bunch, with a whopping 1,460 calories in the 12-inch version, not that anyone but the most ravenous super-eater would be able to stomach downing the whole thing.

And that’s because the Beast, in particular, was a big miss. It felt like it aspired to be an Italian sub (there’s vinaigrette in addition to mayonnaise, and the kick of pepperoni suggests it, too) but it got lost on the way to the festa. The inclusion of roast beef just seemed to muck up the mix, which read as a murky, meaty mash. The Garlic Roast Beef might have been better, but it actually suffered from being paired with the garlicky mayonnaise. I’m a huge garlic lover, and an avowed aioli fan, but the alliums in this condiment were bitter and acrid, enough to drive away vampires and mortals alike.

Far better were the simpler and more straightforward turkey and ham sandwiches, which were pretty standard — if souped-up — deli classics. On all the sandwiches, the tomatoes were wan, pink discs, and piles of red onion slices dominated; I’m not sure if the sandwich artist who made them had a heavier hand than most, but I wasn’t complaining, since I generally like the bite onions offer.

And here’s something that surprised me: I found I appreciated the beefed-up meats and cheeses. I often find sandwiches to be over-breaded, and I sometimes find myself tearing off little bits of buns as I eat, burying them in napkins so as not to look messy, in an effort to get to the correct bun-to-filling ratio. These big guys’ big fillings offered enough heft to stand up to the bread, a version that Subway calls “Artisan Italian,” which has a slight bit of pleasant chew but is otherwise forgettable.

These sandwiches might get the proportions right, but while they might be made for a Marvel hero, it seems unlikely that they’ll save the day.