Subber: The Subway Wannabe That Exceeds All Expectations

October 2, 2018December 11, 2018 Taipei Expat

Subber is a small sandwich shop near Zhishan MRT Station, right across from Tianmu Carrefour. It operates almost exactly like the fast-food chain Subway does, offering a range of subs and salads at reasonable prices that are completely customizable.

The first thing you’ll notice upon stepping inside is the uncanny resemblance to Subway — not only do they imitate the style and menu, but they’ve even gone as far as mimicking the decor. It’s a little odd — we’d never considered Subway a place we’d want to copy the interior design of — but it works.

There isn’t a great deal of seating in Subber, so at peak times you may have to accept defeat and take your meal to go. However, most diners don’t tend to stay long — a table will usually free up if you’re willing to wait.

The ordering process is very simple, and is once again modelled after Subway. First, order your sub or salad. They have a selection of delicious, freshly-baked bread to choose from — pumpkin seed is our personal favourite. Staff are helpful and speak English, but you can also point in times of confusion.

Next, choose the vegetables and sauce for your sub or salad. Their vegetable selection is pretty much the same, but in our opinion their range of sauces is more impressive, and don’t taste as cheap. As a final touch, they will sprinkle a generous serving of nuts, seeds, and freshly-grated Parmesan over your meal (unless you tell them not to). As soon as they are done, you can grab it and pay. In addition to subs and salads, they have soup of the day as well as a range of cakes, cookies, and tasty drinks that you can choose from to upgrade your meal.

Our first order was the chicken breast & fusilli salad, $190. This pasta salad was fresh and filling, and we loved that the dressing came on the side so we could choose how much of it to put in. There was a decent vegetable-to-meat ratio, and the addition of the seeds and cheese gave the salad more luxurious taste than any of the Subway salads.

Our next order was the BBQ chicken with jack cheese sub on pumpkin seed bread, $120. While similar to the subs at Subway, everything about this sandwich tasted better. The bread was fresh and soft, and the pumpkin seeds added an awesome crunch. The ingredients somehow tasted fresher and crisper despite it only being marginally more expensive than Subway. Even the BBQ sauce didn’t taste quite as full of chemicals.

Our final order was the smoked salmon salad, $210. Despite being one of the pricier items on the menu, we felt that it was still good value. There was a surprisingly solid amount of smoked salmon, and once again the ingredients tasted fresher and somehow better. It was a great, standard salad that left us feeling satisfied.

Check out their sub and salad menu: as you can see, prices are slightly higher than Subway. A 6″ sub at Subway is on average around $110, whereas here you would expect to pay around $120. Salads at Subway cost around $130, but at Subber they are between $180-$210. In our opinion, the freshness and quality of the ingredients justify the higher price.