At Japan’s branches of Subway, what you might think of as more conventional sandwich toppings—like cheese or vegetables—wrestle for space on the menu with other optional extras, like a scoop of tuna mayonnaise or five prawns for 100 yen. And when a man like our very own reporter P.K. Sanjun sees that he can have his Subway sandwich topped with an extra five prawns, his first thought is: “I wonder how many prawns I could fit in one sandwich?!”
So when P.K. heard that there were actually secret toppings that you can order at Subway, and that one of those off-menu toppings was roast beef, he prepared his brain, and his stomach, for an extra-large order, and headed to Subway to find out: just how much beef can one Japanese sandwich hold?!
This is the optional toppings menu at Subway. In addition to cheeses, you can also choose to add bacon, tuna mayo, prawns or avocado. Beef wasn’t on the menu, but P.K. was unperturbed.
After checking that there were no other customers in the shop who might overhear his secret ordering, P.K. headed to the counter to ask the server just how much beef he could get! The following is a transcription of their conversation:
P.K.: Excuse me. Can you do roast beef as a topping?
Sandwich artist: Yes, sir. It’s 340 yen for five slices.
P.K.: Seriously?! And how many can I have?
Sandwich artist: As much as you like, sir.
P.K.: Okay! I’ll have a hundred slices, please!
P.K. noticed that the sandwich artist was laughing.
Giggling sandwich artist: Erm, I don’t think I can fit a hundred in there…?
P.K.: Just put in as much as you can.
P.K. ordered a roast beef sub as the base for his meat mountain, and waited for it to be assembled. ‘There’ll be so much beef, it’ll be like eating a whole cow!’ he thought to himself excitedly. The sandwich artist managed to squeeze in an extra 15 slices of beef, bringing the total to 20!
But when P.K. was handed the sandwich, he felt that this wasn’t a particularly monster portion after all; it was just a very well-stuffed sandwich, so full it could barely be closed. He felt a little disappointed.
▼ So this is what ALL YOU CAN BEEF looks like (in Japan).
▼ That is rather a lot of beef, admittedly.
Although he’d been hoping for more than twenty slices, P.K. found that the sub was pleasantly heavy. Biting into it, he made an exciting discovery: “Wherever I bit, I got a mouthful of meat. It was so…meaty! Meaty meaty meaty meaty mmmmmeat!”‘
▼ “I take it all back! This is exactly what I wanted!”
P.K.’s super-beef sub came in at 1,600 yen (US$13.40), of which 1,020 yen ($8.54) was the cost of extra toppings. If you want to try out an experiment like P.K.’s and order off-menu, his recommendation is to be bold! And ask your sandwich artist. They are artists, after all.
All photos: RocketNews24
Original report by P.K. Sanjun
[ Read in Japanese ]