$re = '/title="[\s\S]*?"/';
$str = '<a href="#" title="<table border=\\"0\\" width=\\"100%\\" cellspacing=\\"0\\" cellpadding=\\"0\\">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan=\\"2\\" align=\\"center\\" valign=\\"top\\"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=\\"top\\" width=\\"50%\\">
table content
</td>
<td valign=\\"top\\" width=\\"50%\\">
table content
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>">Link Title</a>';
$subst = "";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str, 1);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php