The Healthy Fast Food. Review on Subway, Oberoi Mall, Goregaon, Mumbai

Well friends, oily food and my stomach never agreed with each other. Maybe that’s because I gave up eating such stuff so long ago that

now whenever I do even try, maybe only out of compulsion, they never forget their old enmity. For this reason I always carry a lot of stuff from home to office for lunch every day. Breakfast and dinner are usually at home only. Whenever we do go out, I have to make very careful choices while ordering and its mostly only soups, salads, boiled vegetables, and such. And you will not believe that I can almost always find something suitable in any type of restaurant that I have to accompany my wife to.

However for this reason if someone asks me a choice of fast food restaurant that I personally would like to go to, it’s always Subway. Pizzas are a dietitians nightmare, so that rules out Dominos and Pizza hut(though pizza huts, salads, garlic bread, and soups are some real good dish choices that I’ve enjoyed several times whenever my son and wife have insisted on going there). KFC is another in that same category. In fact there’s nothing on the menu of KFC that I could even tolerate. Even there coleslaw salad is too heavy. That makes KFC history; the last time I visited KFC was in the early 90s in Singapore when I literally did not have a better choice and wasent in the mood to starve!

McDonalds similarly is a complete No No. There’s not even one dish on their menu that agrees with me.  Thank fully no one insists me to take them there or I’d have to go completely hungry.

So what do I do when I’m on tour and want to have something for lunch? Well if I’m in South India then Idli Sambhar is a good option but if there’s a Subway nearby then nothing is better than that.

Subways USP

A SUBWAY USP surely is healthy and low calorie fast food. Let me describe their Menu a little in detail for you first. They basically have sandwiches that they call Subs and salads. The subs come in two sizes, 6” or foot long. As the names suggest the 6” ones are six inches long and the foot longs are one foot long.  They are all made of bread that is baked right in front of you in their own baking ovens. There are four different types of breads that one can choose from. Whole wheat, honey oats, italian, and parmesan oregano bread. These are the choices currently available in India, however worldwide the are some more too. My favorite is always whole wheat. It’s very easy to digest and even if you take a foot long which at first glance may appear to be too much, you will have no difficulty in digesting it in a couple of hours and is sure to never give you indigestion or a feeling of having overeaten.

As regards what they put inside these breads, it’s a very good mix of freshly cut vegetables. You could add beans or paneer, or other such stuff in the vegetarian section and in the non veg section they have verities of chicken like chicken teriyaki, chicken tikka, sheikh kebab, and also fish. My fav here is the tuna. Even though this is made with tuna fish in a combination of Mayonnaise sauce, but still it’s only just a little heavier than fish without this sauce would have been. It is thus a good nutritional choice.

The last item that needs to be thought about is the dressing for the sandwich. They have several types of dressings, mayonnaise, mint, and several others. You could either choose according to your taste or go with their standard combinations. Further you then need to decide if you want your sub toasted or just as it is.

Salads

The other major item on their menu are the salads. Absolutely perfect for my taste they are. Again you have a choice of all possible veggies, tomato, cucumber, olives, jalapenos, capsicum. To these you can add various add ons, like fish or chicken, paneer etc. By and large there is not much difference between the sandwich and the salads as the same vegetable combinations are used for both except that there are no breads in the salads and the quantity of the vegetables are larger. You can again choose the various dressings. The choice of olive oil is also there this time around. I personally only add the tomato ketchups as they are the lightest in terms of the calories.

A salad and a sub make for an excellent fast food whenever you are on tour or ordering delivery in the office.

Side Dishes

They have various add ons to complete the meal like cookies, cold drinks, energy drinks, and tea coffee at certain outlets. All products are fresh and healthy. There is nothing fried or oily here which makes for the healthiest fast food available today.

Prices

The prices of various products may appear to be a little on the higher side with a tuna salad being about Rs 150, a veggie delight salad about Rs 100. 6” Subs are in the range of Rs 85 to 100. However one best choice is always their “sub of the day”. Each day of the week they have a new sub that is the sub of the day and on that day it is the cheapest, only Rs 65. It’s probably on account of some volume combining that they pass on the benefit of to the customers.

Conclusion

With Subways mushrooming all over various market places they are more accessable than ever before. They are available even outside the new Bangalore Airport now. And guess what once on board a low cost airline, I found then selling Subs too! With life getting as fast as it is today with little time for cooking or waiting, this is an amazingly healthy fast food option.