Subway Japan Coarse Ground Sausage Sandwich and Mos Lettuce Burger (product information)

Subway has decided that the best way to manage the super hot summer is to offer up a big old wiener sandwich. Why go for some cool cold cuts on a bed of veggies when you can eat a hot sausage with cream cheese sauce that weighs in at 445 calories. I'm not suggesting that Subway is always the epitome of healthy eating, but that is the way they sell themselves. I'd think it'd be better to opt for something lighter for summer than a bit of sausage.

Mos Burger, on the other hand, is offering a "lettuce burger" to allow the Japanese market to embrace low carb living. You can substitute lettuce, iceberg, of course, for the bun on several different burgers (fish, beef, chicken, teriyaki chicken, pork cutlet). Though I recognize the nutritional value of a bun is pretty much zero and that this is a better choice from that viewpoint, to me, a burger is not a burger unless it comes between two starched planes. 

Variety Friday: McHotdog Mega Sausage

Image pilfered from McDonald's Japan.

The food that people choose to eat for breakfast has always been more interesting to me than any other meal of the day. We're all willing to be a little adventurous at lunch or supper time, but the type of food that one is willing to shovel into one's face after stumbling out of bed is generally more limited. If people are going to be conservative about their eating habits or eat whatever is considered "traditional" for that meal in their culture, you're going to see that reflected more often in breakfast.

What does all of this talk of breakfast have to do with the McHotdog Mega Sausage? Well, believe it or not, this item is only available for breakfast. If you want to get your over-sized wiener on, you'll have to get to a Mickey D's before 10:30. The ad on the site offers (in English, no less) the following words about this dog: Energy? Fun? Love? Beyond! I'm not sure what the obsession is with putting "love" into product ads where we wouldn't consider inserting such a word, but given the massive size of this sausage, the implications are interesting.

The advertising also says that this dog is 200% tastier for its huge size. I guess if it's bigger than the usual McHotdog, then there's probably more taste, but personally I find that Japanese wieners taste funny. They always have a bit of a strange funky taste. I'm guessing this is simply a reflection of different meat products being used in them, likely more pork. Japanese "hamburger" is laced with ground pork because they favor it over beef.

The interesting thing about this sandwich, and I'm sure that's the inescapable conclusion everyone who has glanced at the picture has reached, is that the bun seems Lilliputian compared to the sausage trying to make a home in it. It looks funky, but it's probably not a bad idea. The bread looks sized mainly to provide a tidy way to hold the hot dog rather than as something to be evenly portioned as you eat it. That means more protein and less carbohydrate which makes for a more energetic morning start. The nutrition information for this sausage fest states that it is 506 calories and 33.5 grams of fat (eep), so eating one may not be so bad on the carb front, but it's not really good for you either.

Personally, I can't see myself scarfing down a big wiener for breakfast so I'm not likely to rouse myself before 10:30 and traipse off to the local McDonald's. I'm generally pretty conservative about breakfast and favor a bit of toast or some other typical American carbohydrate-heavy food. If you're more adventurous, you'll want to get one of these sooner rather than later because the Mega Sausage is going to be around for a limited time.

Oh yes, all the possible double entendres in this piece should be interpreted in the worst possible way.