The good news: It will ward off any vampires

GARLIC bread must be “in” this season. Domino’s struck first with its Garlic Bread Pizza; now Quiznos has responded with its new Prime Rib on Garlic Bread sandwich.

Actually, the Quiz introduced a non-garlicky prime rib sandwich last year, but now they’ve dressed it up by spreading a double portion of meat, mozzarella and mayo inside a hunk of garlic bread. And, of course, they’ve toasted it, as toasting is their main claim to fame.

Sounds great on paper, but does that translate into a great sandwich? One thing’s for sure. You won’t mistake this prime rib for one served at Lawry’s, or even one at a cheap Vegas buffet.

weekend@latimes.com

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Quiznos Prime Rib on Garlic Bread

Taste **

The problem’s not the bread, it’s the meat. Prime rib is normally roasted with its thick, crescent-shaped slab of fat wrapped around it. At Quiznos, the meat arrives at the restaurant in a processed loaf with all that fat mixed in. Not only is it blubbery, it’s actually blander than their traditional roast beef. The garlic bread adds a little kick, and substituting spicy mustard for the mayo helps too.

Diet Watch?

Unlike most large fast food chains, Quiznos doesn’t provide nutritional information about its food. Shame, shame! But given that this meal contains rib meat, mozzarella and mayo -- a trifecta of fat -- we estimate that a regular-sized sandwich contains somewhere between 700 calories and a billion.

Portability***

Most loose-meat sandwiches make cruddy car companions because much of that meat ends up in your lap. The Prime Rib on Garlic Bread (“PROGB”?) holds up surprisingly well, even in stop-and-go traffic. So if there’s an advantage to blubber-meat, it’s that it makes the sandwich sturdier.

Hype-o-meter***

The commercial for the PROGB features stilted man-on-the-

street interviews. For a company whose earliest ads were lauded for their originality, this is considerably dull. But the sandwich is so well photographed, it’s hard not to see it and go, “Man, I’ve gotta try that!” In short: The ad does its job, even if it’s kind of boring. Sort of like the sandwich itself.

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* Ratings are on a scale of one (lowest) to four (best).