Regular Roast Beef from Arby's

As I stated previously, I am determined not to limit the subjects of my posts to only those sandwiches found in deli's and other places that might be considered more "high-brow" as far as sandwiches go. The subject of today's post should drive that point home with authority - much like Albert Pujols would do to a Brad Lidge slider up in the zone circa 2005 NLCS. After all, sandwiches can be found everywhere - even in ubiquitous fast food joints. Whether they are good or not, well, that is a job for The Task Force, my friends. And so it was a few nights ago that when I found myself with an empty belly and a hankerin' for a quick remedy to that problem, I found myself echoing the immortal words of David Puddy. Indeed, it felt like an Arby's night.

If you've been in an Arby's lately, you'll notice a fairly wide variety of sandwiches, from the roast beef which is their staple to fancy new "gourmet" sandwiches with actual bread instead of sesame seed buns. As I tend to do when faced with menu decisions such as these, I decided to start at the very beginning. That meant ordering the Regular Roast Beef that, along with chips and iced tea was the only thing on the menu when Arby's opened it's first store in Youngstown, OH back in 1964.

As for ingredients, it doesn't get much simpler than the Regular Roast Beef which meets the bare minimum for number of ingredients required to actually be a sandwich: two. Namely, bread and something in between it:

• Type of Bread: Sesame Seed Bun
• Dressing(s)/Condiment(s): N/A
• Toppings: Thinly Sliced Roast Beef

That's really it, basically. A hamburger bun and some roast beef. And, in the interest of fairness, that is how I judged the sandwich. Although, it should be noted that like most people, I tend to dress mine up a little bit. Sauces that Arby's has available to augment your roast beef include Arby's sauce (a bar-b-q sauce variant) and the sinus-tingling Horsey sauce. I usually opt for the latter with some cracked black pepper thrown on as well. With that brief disclaimer out of the way, the scoring for Arby's Regular Roast Beef was as follows:

• Quantity/Value: 4/5 - Gone it seems are the glory days of my youth when the Arby's "5 for 5" promotion (5 regular roast beefs for five dollars) would set off a feeding frenzy that, despite the savings my college student budget appreciated, could only be described as unhealthy. The current promotion du jour is a $5.01 combo meal which includes the sandwich, some curly fries and a drink. I understand that whoever came up with the $5.01 idea probably thought it was clever, but I find it annoying and lame - especially if I was paying with cash. Nevertheless, it's still a decent deal for a decent amount of food.
• Originality: 5/5 - What?!? A FIVE for originality?? While it would seem that fast food is just about the most unoriginal thing out there, what you have to keep in mind is that although they certainly weren't the first to make a roast beef sandwich, Arby's was definitely the first to take the concept of a roast beef sandwich and turn it into something huge. And even after all that, where else can you get a sandwich like this? I can think of plenty of places where I can buy a McDonald's style hamburger or a Taco Bell style taco, but few if any where I can get a sandwich like this one.
• Appearance: 5/10 - Now here is where the fact that this is a fast food sandwich really shines through. One of my favorite things to do is to look at a sandwich or burger on a fast food advertisement and then compare it to what it actually looks like when ordered. It's not only a commentary on fast food, but on advertising in our society as a whole. Too often you're sold an image of an ideal something that is so beautiful, so unbelievably perfect that when actually seen with the naked eye it can't possibly measure up. And then not only does it not measure up, but falls woefully, often times comically short of the image that you were sold. So with that in mind, the picture at the top of this post is what Arby's would have you believe their Regular Roast Beef sandwich looks like: a perfectly symmetrical thing of beauty with a heaping pile of roast beef that is at least as thick as the bun it sits on. Here is what I got in my cute little paper sack:
  

Not quite the same, is it. Kind of a sad little thing with a little bit of roast beef peeking out of a bun that it looks like Han just got done sitting on.

• Quality/Freshness: 7/10 - This is kind of a tricky thing to judge with fast food as well. I mean, for all I know this thing could have been made 3 hours before I bought it. But, I have to say, it seemed pretty fresh. The bun was soft without being soggy from the juices of the roast beef. I'm not a roast beef expert, either, so it might be hard for me to speak to the quality of what they used here. While I'm sure it's not the same stuff you'd find at a high-end restaurant, at the very least upon close inspection it didn't have that weirdly disgusting shine that sandwich meat can get if it isn't used right away.
• Taste: 16/20 - As I said earlier, I judged the taste of the Regular Roast Beef based on how the sandwich was served to me - with none of the aforementioned added ingredients. And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised with the results. There really is nothing quite like a big (even if it's not nearly as big as advertised) pile of super thinly sliced meat in between some bread. The roast beef's juices were enough to moisten the sandwich and keep it from being too dry while at the same time not too much as to result in any detrimental sogginess.

Those scores added up give the Regular Roast Beef from Arby's a total score of 37/50. That number probably goes up another point once I thrown on some Horsey sauce and pepper, too. Is this sandwich the Cadillac of roast beef out there? Of course not. But I don't think it has any illusions of being such. It is what it is. A solid, relatively cheap sandwich that, at least for me, has held up over time and continues to be one I revisit with some frequency. And, fyi, in addition to the Regular size, it can be ordered in Junior, Medium and Large sizes. I'm not sure if the "Large" is the same size as the "Big Montana" version that Arby's peddled for awhile, but that thing was so enormous that the one time I tried it, it killed Arby's for me for a good year. Yeesh.