Fast Food Review: Subway Seafood Sensation

Right upfront, an apology: normally I begin every fast food review with an image of the product in question taken from the official company website. And yet Subway’s official site not only has no picture of the Seafood Sensation; it doesn’t even MENTION it. I suspect this may be because they don’t want to reveal the ingredients, as they do with other products.

Some individual Subway stores have their own websites with pictures, but the only ones I could find were too tiny and didn’t really look like the actual item anyway.

This review was a special request, sort of…on Twitter, Jeff Katz was wondering if anyone had tried it yet. I decided to treat that as a request. If there are any specific other items you’d like me to review, let me know.

I don’t generally review Subway stuff, because aside from one’s choice of meat, every menu item is practically the same, depending only on which “fixins” you want (and most people seem to get nearly all of them). I usually customize whatever I’m having with spinach leaves, cilantro, and chipotle sauce, but these aren’t among the main choices, so for the purposes of this review, I went with the more popular choices, excepting only the ones I dislike. So: American cheese, tomatoes, green peppers, pickles, olives, mustard, salt, pepper, oil, vinegar. Distinctive things on their own, but put all together inside bread, the end product can best be described as “slightly sour crunch.” Ah well, it’s mostly good for you.

Not that you need me to tell you what tomatoes and green peppers on a sandwich taste like; at least, I HOPE not! No, the key ingredient here is Subway’s proprietary “Seafood Sensation.” They used to have a version of this called “Seafood and Crab,” which would be advertised with a tiny disclaimer noting that “Subway Seafood and Crab” is a processed seafood blend. So is this, though I’m guessing that it no longer has any trace of actual crab in it, hence the name change.

That said, one of the local Subway sites I found online describes it as being made up of seafood and crab. But they may be parroting outdated talking points.

The blended product, that is stirred in mayo before going on your sandwich, combines noodle-like strips with pink-streaked chunks. The strips taste a bit like slightly fishy noodles, while the chunks have a scallopy texture. As Long John Silvers used to claim, it’s like fish without that fishy taste.

It’s better than your average grocery-store imitation crabmeat (or “Krab,” as it’s more simply called most places), but it resembles seafood about as much as Dolly Parton’s breasts resemble something that occurred naturally. So mild tasting that practically any of the custom sauces available could drown it out, it’s something to eat only because it’s cheap, filling, and relatively innocuous. An alternative, perhaps, to those who find the regular tuna sub too intense. Or those who think California rolls purchased at sushi stands in the mall food court are awesome (Subway allows the addition of avocado for an extra charge, to complete the fake sushi experience).

It should be noted that this is one of the few footlongs that remain in the much-touted five-dollar range.

I probably won’t be ordering it again. But I would eat one if it were free.