Yes. No. Yes.

Those are the answers to the following questions about Subway’s new Oven Crisp Chicken sub.

Are they really prepared in an oven? Yes, the pieces of breaded chicken are heated up in Subway’s proprietary toasting oven (yes, the same one they toast the bread in).

Are the breaded oven baked chicken pieces crispy? No, they are not at all crispy.

Are they using real pieces of chicken? Yes, they are real pieces of chicken. Although, after eating them, some might disagree.

Preparing the Subway Oven Crisp Chicken sub looks like it’s a pain in the ass for the Sandwich Artists behind the counter. I ordered a footlong on Italian bread with honey mustard sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, and while it sounds like a simple sandwich, it sure took awhile to make. The guy who made my sandwich had to stick the two pieces of chicken in their super-duper proprietary toasting oven for what seemed to be a long time when you have a slowly growing line of people wanting you to make a sandwich for them.

But all that time spent in an oven that, to be honest, doesn’t even do a good job of toasting bread, didn’t help with making the exterior of the chicken crispy. I couldn’t hear or feel any crispiness. Oh, the sandwich did have a little crunchiness, but that was thanks to the lettuce and cucumbers I put in it and definitely not the chicken.

If you look closely at one of the pieces of chicken in this sandwich, it looks like there are some herbs in the breading. However, whatever flavor is in the breading, it easily gets lost if you add any condiment. Even a bite of chicken, sans honey mustard sauce, had very little flavor. Along with not having much flavor, the chicken is also a bit dry, which is actually par for the course when it comes to any Subway chicken sandwich.

Overall, I think the Subway Oven Crisp Chicken sub is slightly better tasting than Subway’s Oven Roasted Chicken. Although, to be honest, that’s not saying much since I don’t think too highly of the Oven Roasted Chicken sub.

(Nutrition Facts – 6-inch sub – 420 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6.7 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 940 milligrams of sodium, 67 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 23 grams of protein.)

Other Subway Oven Crisp Chicken reviews:
Grub Grade
Hungry Thirsty Guy

Item: Subway Oven Crisp Chicken Sub
Price: $7.00
Size: Footlong
Purchased at: Subway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: It’s new. Slightly better than the Subway Oven Roasted Chicken sub. The bread is making my bones strong.
Cons: It takes awhile to make. Not crispy. Chicken didn’t have much flavor. Subway’s proprietary ovens can’t make chicken or bread crispy. Vegetables provided all the sandwich’s crunchiness.

Update: Click here to read our Subway Oven Crisp Chicken Sub review

Today, Subway introduced a new crispy chicken sandwich.

When I first heard the news, I thought to myself, “Hallelujah! Subway is letting itself go! Jared is going to get fat again!” But then I learned, unlike other fast food places with fried crispy chicken sandwiches, Subway’s crispy chicken is baked using some fancy schmancy proprietary technology.

The Oven Crisp Chicken sandwich will be available for a limited time, and when I say “limited time,” I mean until September 30. The suggested retail price for a six-inch is $4, while a footlong has an suggested retail price of $6.

A six-inch version of Subway’s Oven Crisp Chicken sandwich has 420 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6.7 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 940 milligrams of sodium, 67 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 23 grams of protein.

Subway also debuted a yogurt parfait that’s made with low-fat vanilla yogurt, a layer of strawberries and blueberries, and topped with granola. The yogurt parfait has 160 calories, two grams of fat, and has a suggested retail price of $1.49.

If you tried the Subway Oven Crisp Chicken Sub or their new yogurt parfait, let us know what you thought of it in the comments below.

Update: Click here to read our Subway Oven Crisp Chicken Sub review

Here are some of this month’s limited time offers.

This month, Slurpee is partnering up with the WWE for this month’s featured Slurpee — Berry Citrus Slam. It’s a blend of raspberry and orange. If you’re into holding wrestling matches between collectable Slurpee cups, you’ll be happy to hear 7-Eleven will be offering exclusive cups and straws highlighing WWE superstars, like John Cena, The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and other WWE wrestlers who aren’t popular enough to star in movies. An 8-ounce serving has 65 calories, 0 grams of fat, 5 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, and 17 grams of sugar.

Baskin-Robbins’ Flavor of the Month is Picnic Punch, a watermelon and green apple sherbet that reminds you summer is almost over and the cold non-sherbet eating months are around the corner. A 4-ounce scoop has 160 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 45 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 33 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.

Dairy Queen’s Blizzard of the Month is the Nutter Butter Blizzard which is made up of Nutter Butter cookie pieces and Nutter Butter peanut butter crème filling blended with creamy vanilla soft serve. A medium Nutter Butter Blizzard has 960 calories, 39 grams of fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 660 milligrams of sodium, 135 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 92 grams of sugar, and 20 grams of protein.

Cold Stone Creamery’s Gold Cone Flavor of the Month is Mojito Sorbet, which the Cold Stone website describes the lime-flavored treat as “a refreshing blend of mint coupled with the unique texture of a sorbet.” However, they forgot to add, “without the warmness of alcohol.” A medium serving of Mojito Sorbet has 310 calories, 3 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 5 milligrams of sodium, 74 grams of carbohydrates, 71 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.

August’s $5 Featured Footlong is their Buffalo Chicken. I’m not a fan, but it appears others really like the combination of buffalo glazed chicken and ranch dressing. A six-inch Buffalo Chicken has 460 calories, 19 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 1390 milligrams of sodium, 47 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 9 grams of sugar, and 27 grams of protein.

This week, Subway, where we can all Eat Fresh, announced it has now added calcium and vitamin D to their line of fresh baked bread. A six-inch serving of bread provides 30 percent of the daily recommnded value of calcium and 20 percent of the daily recommended value of vitamin D.

For those of you who didn’t take nutrition classes or don’t read random Wikipedia entries late at night to pass the time while your torrents download:

“One of the most important roles of vitamin D is to maintain skeletal calcium balance by promoting calcium absorption in the intestines, promoting bone resorption by increasing osteoclast number, maintaining calcium and phosphate levels for bone formation, and allowing proper functioning of parathyroid hormone to maintain serum calcium levels.”

With Subway adding calcium to their bread, it’s now possible to get more than 100 percent of the daily recommended amount of calcium in one meal at Subway. Using the nutrition table on Subway’s website, I can get 60 percent if I order a footlong turkey breast sandwich using their 9-grain wheat bread, then another 20 percent if I add provolone cheese to it, and if I get the meal, I can get 45 percent if I order a low-fat milk and another 8 percent if I get a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. That’s a grand total of 133 percent of the daily recommended value of calcium.

It’s also 1,070 calories, 31.5 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 12 grams of fiber, and 2,360 milligrams of sodium. But who’s counting?

The calcium and vitamin D fortified bread should be available now at your local Subway restaurant.

The people running Subway might be the greatest salesmen in the world. They’ve positioned their sandwiches as health foods solely on the strength of one erstwhile fat guy’s crazy diet, and the five-dollar footlong campaigns have been so successful that they could actually ruin both the fast food and porn industries in one fell swoop. Subway’s marketing department has even had success in generating great publicity in fictional worlds, as seen by their support of Happy Gilmore’s epic quest to save his grandmother’s house and hook up with the hot blonde mom from Modern Family. At this point it almost feels ridiculous to doubt Subway’s ability to sell any and all of its products; you’re better off trying to dispute people’s enthusiasm for the new Harry Potter movie, hipsters’ willingness to wear sweaters in the summer, or my ability to use three sloppy analogies in a row.

And yet… I had doubts that a BBQ pulled pork sandwich could work at Subway. A pulled pork sandwich seems fundamentally different from all of Subway’s previous limited edition releases. Making a good pulled pork sandwich feels like it would require significantly more expertise than most other sandwiches. Also, judging by the number of hours dedicated to barbecue on the Food Network, people have a love for pulled pork that just doesn’t exist for, say, cold cut combos, so it would be extra disappointing if Subway did a poor job with a foodie-favorite. Finally, the sandwich costs $8.00, and at that price point you might as well spend the extra $2 and order two footlongs, which gets you double the porn jokes AND all your sodium for the week!

The process of actually ordering the sandwich did little to allay my doubts. The pulled pork was held in the same type of container as the tuna, which meant it was scooped out ice cream-style. I had assumed the pork would be held in the microwaveable cardboard trays; instead, the only heating the meat got was from the toasting of the overall sandwich. I watched in quiet anticipation of the barbecue sauce being added, but the woman behind the counter took my silence to mean I was satisfied with the current contents of my sandwich, and she began to wrap it up before I realized I had to specifically ask for the barbecue sauce. I suppose the Sandwich Artists can occasionally put together a masterpiece, but the output of this particular experience felt more like a poorly-followed color-by-numbers worksheet.

By the time I sat down to actually eat, expectations were remarkably low. The pulled pork sandwich beat those expectations, though not by much. The pork was fairly flavorful, if a bit too salty, but the paste-like texture was rather unpleasant. I think the meat really could have benefited from a brief blast in the microwave, which possibly would have melted some fat and added some juiciness. The barbecue sauce was solid, with a nice smokiness and not too much sweetness, but because it was added last and not mixed in with the pulled pork, I was always acutely aware that I was eating “pulled pork with BBQ sauce on top” and not “BBQ pulled pork.”

Would I buy Subway’s BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich again? Probably not. Then again, I wouldn’t count out the Subway marketing team just yet. There could be some new jingle or a movie promotional tie-in that convinces me otherwise. Who knows, maybe they could even help make Adam Sandler movies funny again (but don’t hold your breath on that one).

(Nutrition Facts – 1 footlong – 570 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 95 milligrams of cholesterol, 1340 milligrams of sodium, 68 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 11 grams of sugar, 56 grams of protein, 8% vitamin A, 20% vitamin C, 30% calcium, and 25% iron.)

Other Subway BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich reviews:
Brand Eating
The BBQ Grail
Tampa Bay Food Monster

Item: Subway BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich
Price: $8.00
Size: Footlong
Purchased at: Subway
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Pulled pork was flavorful. Barbecue sauce was smoky and not too sweet. Subway’s marketing department. Old Adam Sandler movies.
Cons: Pulled pork was paste-like. Pork wasn’t heated up at all. Barbecue sauce wasn’t mixed in with the meat. Sandwich Artistry. The potential ruination of the porn industry. New Adam Sandler movies.

Here are a few product reviews posted this week from other blogs we follow.

It turns out Canada has chip flavours that are more awesome than the ones we have in the United States. I’d like to recommend we trade the Stanley Cup for some of those Canadian chip flavours. (via Fat Guy Food Blog)

Whose tube do I have to suck in order to get some creamy goodness? Apparently, this one. (via Japanese Snack Reviews)

Arby’s new Angus Cool Deli Sandwich, with 35 grams of fat and 1,760 milligrams of sodium, doesn’t sound like Good Mood Food, it sounds like Good Belly Protrude Food. (via Dude Foods)

Subway makes a BBQ pulled pork sandwich. With that now a reality, I look forward to Subway’s unsatisfying attempt at another one of my favorite sandwiches — peanut butter and jelly. (via Tampa Bay Food Monster)

Reviewing 15 fast food condiments is impressive. I hope to top it by reviewing 16 condoms with mint. (via An Immovable Feast)