This week saw Subway take a bold step into the world of jacket potatoes. It's an idea that works so well I'm not sure why it took the sandwich chain so long to think of it.
They've already got everything they need - the large array of toppings, the sauces and the little ovens. And after choosing your hot filling you get to add in absolutely anything you want from the normal buffet of sandwich toppings.
As I headed to the branch in St Nicholas Place in Leicester city centre my only real worry was that they might just somehow mess up baking a potato. All of the spuds are pre-cooked, as you'd expect, and just spend a few seconds in the oven.
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But as they came out of the oven for the second time they looked and tasted great. The potato inside was smooth, creamy and tasty. And the skin was far better than I'd expected. It was just tough enough, blackened enough and crunchy enough to recreate the proper jacket potato experience.
In the interests of thorough journalism, I ordered four potatoes with different hot fillings. I think it annoyed everyone behind me in the queue but it seemed to be a good learning experience for the two apologetic sandwichmakers behind the counter, who explained they had only been serving spuds since the day before.
They seemed much more synchronised and efficient by the time they got to my fourth potato. Under the new trial, while absolutely any sandwich available at Subway is also available - for a bit more money - in an upgraded potato form, the company has introduced five varieties of hot fillings.
The options include Cheese and Heinz Beans, which I didn't bother with. I ordered one of each of the other four - Chicken Tikka, Rotisserie Style Chicken & Bacon, Taco Beef and Tuna Mayonnaise.
The beefy one appeared to be the most expensive at £6.09 with the others costing £5.99. But when I read the receipt I noticed the cheeky people had charged me an extra 60p for having bacon on my chicken and bacon spud. But a hot meal for that price is pretty good value for money when it's also very tasty.
All four were delicious. There were no hard bits of potato, no undercooked or overcooked patches of skin. The main problem I found was that the wooden knife and fork provided weren't up to the job.
The knife was just about okay, although it took a few slashes to get through some bits of skin. But the prongs of the fork weren't sharp enough to stab through the skin to hold the potato steady while you attempt to saw through.
My favourite was the Chicken Tikka but all four were very tasty and with or without any sauce on top they were all beautifully moist with the butter and cheese, which comes with all of the five hot filling options and goes nice and stringy in the oven.
Jacket potatoes at Subway are not necessarily here to stay. The new potato option - which the company introduced on Wednesday (February 19) and has inevitably called Spudway - is a trial going on at 170 restaurants around the UK.
If it works it will, presumably, continue. Other Leicester branches in the trial include Humberstone Gate, Melton Road, Evington Road and Narborough Road.
According to the press release we received earlier this week, the company feels this is the perfect time to launch spuds on its menu. It said jacket potatoes were "surging in popularity thanks to their comforting, filling nature and great value".
And apparently there been a "recent buzz on social media" with "videos flooding feeds and racking up millions of views".
At the end of the press release, Subway's Deniz Safa said: “Made with British potatoes, salted butter and a double portion of cheese, plus any of our many toppings, Spudway is the perfect freshly-made, high-quality lunch choice."
And I think he's right. But they will definitely need some sharper forks.
Our rating: 4/5
Official food hygiene rating: 5/5
Subway did not know we would be doing a review and we paid for our food.
