Vol. 18: Arby's Steakhouse Sub

I've seen the commercials for this sandwich for several weeks now, and every time I see it, I think to myself, "Self!  That looks delicious.  You need to try that for the Junk Food Junkie."  Well, the time has come for me to actually do that.  For those of you not in the know, it's a roughly 8" roll with their signature roast beef, fried onion straws, Swiss cheese, and a peppercorn Ranch sauce. 

The sub is listed as part of their current $5 Meal Deal menu, which means you get the token drink and curly fries with the meal.  (Arby's curly fries are the bomb, anyway.)  Upon returning to my desk, I tore into the sandwich (after taking the requisite picture) with abandon.

Or, at least, I tried to.  The first two bites were nothing but chewy as hell and largely flavorless ciabatta bread.  No meat, no cheese, no sauce even.  Yummy.  Great way to start off a sandwich.  Whatever.  After plowing my way through the introductory bites and actually scoring on the beef and stuff, I was blessed with a profound dance of pure meh on my taste buds.  Confused, I tried again, this time concentrating on finding some redeeming quality to this sandwich.  I did manage to come up with one:  It doesn't smell like duck farts.

Where do I begin?  The bread remained chewy enough to make me feel like I had a jaw workout throughout the half (!!) of the sandwich I could stomach eating.  The beef - their signature - of course was juicy and tasty, unfortunately, it was smothered under the blanket of suck lost in the hills of blandness that was everything else.  The peppercorn ranch sauce, in truth, should just be renamed "peppercorn sauce," as there was no discernible essence of Ranch flavor, whatsoever, and it served no purpose as a sandwich lubricant at all.  The Swiss was fast-food Swiss, so while that in and of itself didn't detract from the party, it did add to the dryness factor.  As for the onion straws?  In truth, I can't really badmouth comment on them too negatively, mostly because I could hardly even tell they were there.  Yes, I looked at them, saw them on the sandwich, but when it came to actual taste, they might have well been Onion Ninjas. 

On top of all the above trash-talking, the sandwich is salty enough that it puts Hungry Man frozen dinners to shame.  I looked it up online, only to discover (with utter horror) that the sandwich alone has over 1,900mg of Sodium.  WTF?   I'm not much in the way of a health nut - obviously - but even I take notice whenever it seems like you're eating a frikkin' salt lick on a bun as though every bite requires half a glass of water with it.

The Verdict

1/5.  I'll eat it if I'm starving to death, but I'll pass on this piece of sh*t train wreck even if you're buying.