Please pass me another piece of incinerated leather.
Written: Jun 02 '04 (Updated Aug 18 '04)
Product Rating:
Ease of Use:
Durability:
Ease of Cleaning:
Style:
Pros: Nice surface, compact, makes a nice paperweight
Cons: Want your steak rare, medium, well-done or Foreman'd?
The Bottom Line: I gave it a "5" for ease of use. Why? Well, anyone can use a trash incinerator too, once they read the instructions! But trash incinerators aren't marketed as grills.
meade's Full Review: George Foreman GR26CB XL Indoor Grill
Lean? You betcha. Mean? I've never seen a piece of meat more whipped into cowhide than with this George Foreman appliance. This isn't a grill; it's a meat crematorium.
There, it's out of my system. Unfortunately it's still in my cabinet at home. Hidden, but still there.
Friends, if you're a guy and you love this machine, you meet one of two criteria -- neither of which bode well for your manliness. First, you may not own a grill due to several factors; if you cannot own one because you live in an apartment, I feel for you. (But do yourself a favor and take a ride to a restaurant for your steak.) Second, you're not man enough to stand outside in all manners of weather and grill something on a real grill.
No matter what, if you own this grill and you like the taste and consistency of the food that comes out of it, then either (1) you've just left prison, or (2) you've never tasted food grilled on a GRILL.
This "grill" couldn't be easier to use -- just plug it in, wait for the little light to turn off (indicating the crematorium is ready), insert the piece of meat or vegetable matter you'd like to incinerate, close the coffin lid and wait.
Trouble is, any amount of waiting results in a piece of meat that doesn't qualify as edible by any stretch of the imagination. If you take it out too early, it's scorched on the outside and underdone on the inside. Anything past "too early" dries the meat out to the point that you've got to use five gallons of A1 just to wrestle each bite down your throat. Friends, I've had this grill for five years and I know what I'm talking about. I've tried steaks, chicken, burgers, seafood, pork chops, you name it -- and all have come out dry and terrible. This thing insults my manliness, leaving me having to apologize to my wife about the dried-out, overdone entree I'm putting on her plate. All this because it's too rainy to go outside and fire up the Weber? GIVE ME MY UMBRELLA!!!
The problem inherent to this grill -- one which unfortunately cannot be avoided because of its design -- is the heavy weight of the lid that presses down on its victim (i.e. your expensive cuts of meat) the entire time it's being "grilled." Any book on grilling will tell you NOT to "press down" on burgers or any other cuts of meat you're grilling as this squeezes out all the juices that cause the meat to be, er, MOIST!!! Meats cooked on this grill are constantly smashed by the lid the entire time they're in the incineration chamber, and the lid presses out all traces of juiciness for the sake of "fat reduction." (Did you read the fine print? The George Foreman "smash & burn" grill reduces fat compared to "normal" grilling by a humongous FOUR PERCENT!!!) Again, GIMME MY WEBER!!!
About the only redeeming quality for this grill -- and it's a small one -- is that it does bacon wonderfully with no countertop, stovetop and floor mess to clean up. Try it -- betcha didn't think about trying bacon with this thing! See? I HAVE had it a long time!!!
On the subject of cleaning -- that's another area where the grill really falls short. Through someone's dozing at George Foreman World Headquarters, a possible saving grace ... i.e. removable grill surfaces ... was overlooked. I got my grill when they first came out and thought they'd surely make this improvement, but they haven't. So you have to wait until the grill cools sufficiently to rest it precariously on the edge of the sink and sponge it clean ... but don't wait too long! Let the grill get cold and you'll have to fire it up again for a few moments to get the scorched remains warm enough to clean off with any results worth mentioning. And you'll most assuredly cover your countertop with water and soap while you're doing this, getting soapy water down inside the grill's innards as you're doing so. (This always results in an "interesting" odor the next time I fire up the grill ... which isn't often these days.)
Another non-redeeming quality is the lack of anywhere to put the cord. I resort to coiling it up as closely to the grill as possible, and using a twist-tie to hold it bunched up. I think a nicer solution would've been to provide a plug at the grill end too so the whole cord could be removable for storage. But oh well, I'm not George, what do I know?
The grill does have a nice, nonstick surface that has held up surprisingly well over the past five years, but then again I've babied it as much as I can. It WILL scratch if you use hard abrasives to clean it or forks to remove food from it, so be careful. Overall, it has been very reliable over the years ... it continues to convert expensive cuts of meat into unrecognizable, tasteless hunks of leather with alarming consistency.
Gimme my Weber and I'll grill you a steak you'll love. Give me a George Foreman and I'll outfit you with replacement shoe soles for life.
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