Subway's Pulled Pork Sandwich

Photo by Subway

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Subway BBQ Pulled Pork Edition.

The Good:

Close examination of the pulled pork reveals that it is actual slow-cooked pulled pork, fairly juicy. Even when not dressed with the barbecue sauce (I got it on the side) it had a bit of smokiness (not that I believe for a minute that Subway's little tubs of commissary-pulled pork are done in a pit.)

Subway's bread is decent. Pulled pork should be served on good soft rolls and Subway delivers.

The Bad:

That barbecue sauce is totally generic. Cloyingly sweet (thank you, high-fructose corn syrup) with bottled smoke and a limited amount of spices lending flavor. It tastes like every other cheap fast-food barbecue sauce you've ever had.  McDonalds McRib? Gotcha. Burger King "barbecue" dipping sauce? Yeah. Wendy's whatever-the-hell-completely-forgettable-BBQ-crap-they've-done? Tastes just like it.

The Ugly:

If you like a dab of pulled pork with a metric ton of lettuce and onions to make the sandwich look big, this is the lunch for you. Subway's photo ads are the biggest liars in fast food marketing. And really, every time I've been to a good BBQ joint, my pulled pork sandwich has had nothing on it but decent sauce and some sweet bread-and-butter pickles on top. Lettuce and dill pickles? WTF, Subway?

For an emergency BBQ fix, Subway's got you covered. Tell them to leave off the lettuce and dill pickles and you can almost make believe that you're at a real BBQ place, if real BBQ places used the cheapest sauce they could scrounge.