Fast Food Review: Subway Flatizza and Fritos Chicken Enchilada Sub

Subway doing pizza is one of those things that actually makes sense. In theory.

Sure, why wouldn’t it work? You have a whole array of fresh-cut toppings right there, an oven you can slide them into, marinara sauce already made for your meatballs (which raises the question over whether it’s wholly vegetarian, if that matters to you).

You are, of course, reckoning without the fact that this is Subway, and there’s a reason the only cooked food they serve is pre-cooked. Because somehow, they only ever hire people who have no idea how to use an oven.

Am I right or am I brain dead? Those of you who order toasted subs at Subway – have you ever gotten one that actually, fully seems toasted, as opposed to slightly warmed? Quizno’s can do this – they’ve got the conveyor belt. Subway tells people to pop the things in the huge oven for maybe a few seconds. If the cheese melts a bit, you’re good, they think

And that brings us to the next issue. What the hell is up with this cheese? Whatever pizza mozzarella they think they’re using tastes rubbery, and two go-arounds in my microwave didn’t help. So this make me thinks Subway is reinforcing the idea in its employees’ noggins that indeed they can’t cook. How were they to know you gave them uncookable cheese? And then it’s served it on yoga mats. No, I don’t mean the additive in the bread that’s also been infamously used in those accessories to spiritual stretching – I mean this dense, hard rectangle you pile the toppings on has the consistency of an actual yoga mat. Well, it did feel like it stretched my throat, so mission accomplished.

Oh, we’re not done.

I’m going to talk smack on the veggies now.

How can I, right? They should be the best part. But guess what happens when you order a veggie Flatizza and they put everything on it?

“Everything” includes jalapeno and banana peppers. And your Flatizza – through rubber and yoga mat – tastes like burning vinegar. And nothing else. So I was anxious to taste the new chicken enchilada sub with Fritos on it. Because it’s not pretending. To be healthy, to be a pizza or anything else. Well, I guess maybe it is pretending to be an enchilada, and it tastes nothing like one, but that’s okay. I forgive it, because it does taste good.

I asked for it to be on flatbread like in the pictures – thank Cthulhu it was a nicer, fluffier flatbread than on the Flatizza – and requested whatever “normally” goes on it, receiving in return cheese, chipotle sauce, Fritos, green peppers, lettuce and tomatoes. And that chicken – it’s basically the same chopped chicken blend they use when they do barbecue chicken, but spicy instead of sweet.

The tomatoes they gave me were kinda mushy, but weirdly, when combined with the chipotle sauce, the texture/flavor combo was not unlike avocado in my mouth. The chicken is good, better than the overprocessed breast pieces they use on other things. And the Fritos? It was like when you order a “southwest” (or whatever) salad that has tortilla strips in it as filler. Adds a little bit of crunch, and an aftertaste like Fritos. Using generic corn strips would have worked too, but I’m guessing the cobranding helps.

In the ultimate taste test, both my wife and my cat turned up their noses at the Flatizza. But while I was choking it down, my furry friend got very interested in the sammich.

Though knowing her, she might have been just as interested in eating the wrapper.