Why People Are Unimpressed With Subway Japan's New 'Wild' Sandwich

Here's some free marketing advice for fast food chains: Beware of claiming any item on your menu is the biggest. Someone is going to grab a ruler or a scale and challenge you. Subway, no stranger to controversy in recent years, has set itself up for even more in Japan by claiming a new sandwich is its "heaviest sub in history." Granted, something might be lost in translation here, but then again the report on Subway Japan's new Wild Clubhouse sandwich comes from SoraNews24, an English language website based in Tokyo. The translation is probably good.

The sandwich might be good, too. Despite the sound of its name, Subway Japan's Wild Clubhouse isn't a hot venue for Tokyo's underground music scene. It is fairly well stacked with ingredients: chicken, bacon, eggs, onions, tomatoes, and cucumber. The Subway Japan website also shows lettuce in images of the new sub, which the sandwich chain introduced on November 17.

Even the "wild" in the name appears to be suspect, considering that chicken, the eggs they lay, and bacon are all thoroughly domesticated foodstuffs. This particular adjective does appear to apply to the sandwich's sauce, though. The chipotle sauce caused SoraNews24's correspondent to break into a sweat.

The sandwich Subway Japan claims is its "heaviest sub in history" did fill the belly of the SoraNews24 staffer who visited her local restaurant to investigate the chain's claim. Still, after finishing Subway's new Wild Clubhouse sandwich, the reporter was left wanting more. Her report indicated the sub could have had "a little more wildness and volume," even though she admitted it packed a good spice punch.

When a burger chain puts a Triple Triple Burger on its regular menu (that's nine patties, for the multiplication challenged), then maybe it would have the right to claim the heaviest hamburger in history (via Eat This, Not That!). But Subway Japan should know that its Wild Clubhouse isn't in the same weight class as the double-armload Giant Sub it offered in 2018, according to a separate SoraNews24 article. (To be fair, that item wasn't on the menu and was special-order only.)

Maybe when Subway Japan said "heaviest," it meant in the 1960s American sense: "serious or intense" (via Your Dictionary). Or, as a rabbi's blog called The Human Side of the Coin put it, "Deep, hard, mystical, full of awe, troubling, difficult, glorious, inspiring. Back in the day, 'heavy' could mean any of those things or all of them. In other words, a one-word description of life." We're sure Subway Japan's Wild Clubhouse fits into that definition somewhere.