We live in an interconnected world. Elvis walked into the White House and shook Nixon’s hand. Abbott and Costello met Frankenstein. Steve Urkel annoyed both Uncle Jesse and Patrick Duffy. I once sat in a Ford Explorer with Eddie Bauer logos on it. We’re all star stuff, guys. It’s exciting.
When titans meet, it’s a reminder that we’re all on the same team, that we all indeed occupy the same universe. Tommy Lee Jones was Al Gore’s college dorm mate, y’all. Betty Crocker uses Hershey chocolate in its mixes! The Justice League fought the Avengers. Doritos Locos Tacos!
So when Subway unveiled its Fritos Chicken Enchilada Melt, I was eager to get one in my maw. I mean, I had already been manually putting chips on my sandwich for years. Wait. Sorry. We’ve already been manually putting chips on our sandwiches for years. (Right? Right?! High fives all around.) Now two giant corporations are joining forces to put chips on a sandwich.
They have research teams and focus groups and everything. This thing should be a masterpiece. I bought a lobster bib and scratched out the picture of a lobster and replaced it with a drawing of a smiling lobster eating a sandwich with chips on it. I’m ready. I’m cheering in my seat.
Unfortunately, I am loath to report that Subway and Frito-Lay came together and birthed the half-breed antichrist of sandwiches. It gurgled and writhed in pain and asked me to put it out of its misery, and after I ate it, I asked the same of myself.
The tragic journey begins in the Subway assembly line. “I want to make it look like the poster,” I say. The sandwich artist grumbles something incoherent and conjures a foot-long flatbread from the ether. The chicken comes pre-sauced and looks all wet. Two (2!) small bags of Fritos are dumped onto the sandwich. “Whoa, I’ve never seen that before,” cries out the guy behind me in line. Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickles are the ingredients I saw on the poster, so that’s what I get.
The Fritos Chicken Enchilada Melt looks weak. The flatbread gives it a limp disposition, and it’s wider than the regular loaves, so the ingredients look scattered like they were dumped into the bottom of a garbage can. Taking the first bite, though, is not bad. The flatbread is chewy and floury like a pita. Going forward, however, the hot part of the sandwich has warmed over the should-be-cold lettuce and tomato (Gross!). The slightly sour pickles tasted out of place in what is, I guess, a Subway version of a soft taco.
The barely spicy enchilada sauce on the chicken has rendered the chicken tasteless—the protein is purely there for texture. Worst of all, the Fritos have strangely become soggy in the five-minute journey from bag to sandwich to mouth. It kind of tastes like if you crushed up a Double Decker Taco Supreme (with chicken, hold the sour cream) into a sandwich bag and then left it in the sun for an hour. The sickly nuclear warmth of the concoction stuck to my stomach for a good 45 minutes.
Elvis died on a toilet and Nixon had to resign from being president. Frankenstein has to be depicted in I, Frankenstein. Steve Urkel never worked again. Eddie Bauer filed for bankruptcy. Titans meet but sometimes the story doesn’t always have a happy ending. Sometimes it’s more like when Freddy meets Jason or when Alien fights Predator, or like whenever they try to make a movie with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. Sometimes it just ruins chips on a sandwich.
(Nutrition Facts – 6 inch sandwich – 580 calories, 240 calories from fat, 26 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 1170 milligrams of sodium, 60 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of fiber, 9 grams of sugar, 25 grams of protein.)
Item: Subway Fritos Chicken Enchilada Melt
Purchased Price: $6.50
Size: Footlong
Purchased at: Subway
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: Flatbread was flat, chewy.
Cons: Fritos do not stand up well to sauce. Pre-sauced meats at Subway are all gross. Cold parts of sandwich were warm. Badly constructed, looks like a mess.