I had the original V-slicer, but the ex-wife took it. I shopped around for a replacement, but could not find anything that really would replace my V-slicer but this. It is almost Identical to the V, but has a slightly less sturdy frame unless you put it on the included holder. Then, it works like the original (which gets excellent reviews) but has a place to catch the food and associated juices. The non-slip rubber pads on the holder work great, and eliminated the one problem I had with the original that it would slide around.
If you get this, just remember that it is the speed, not the force with which you slice, that makes all the difference.
I bought this slicer because of all the great reviews it had. And it is an excellent slicer. I bought this model since it had the catch container. This works perfectly with the slicer. The slicer fits into grooves on the container and with the rubber pieces on the bottom, it doesn't move at all. In fact, when I was done with it I tried to push it out of the way. Forget it. It just won't slide; which is a good thing.
I have tried it using fruit and veg's and it works beautifully. Nice uniform pieces. Used the julienne attachments and they were perfect. You do need to keep moving the produce with the holder and do NOT go too slow, especially when using the thick side. If you go to slow the produce will get hung up on the blade. Just keep it moving at a steady pace.
The one thing that does annoy me however is the absence of a blade guard. This whole unit stores in the container with a lid which is great, BUT when it is sitting around or especially after you just washed it, that blade is open and dangerous. If you are not aware, you could easily grab it out of the drain board and do some real damage. Every single model SHOULD have a blade guard to protect you. That is why I took off 1 star.
One other note Amazon said this was in stock yet they took 3 days to ship it. Why? I have dealt with Amazon for years and have ALWAYS had great service with shipping. Another product I ordered, they did the same thing. Why waiting so long until shipping out?
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I recently moved into my first apartment. Well, it is still run by the University, but at least I have my own kitchen. This seemed like a good addition for when I have to slice or dice a fair amount of food stuffs at least until my knife skills get better.
First, the pros. The blades are sharp. As long as you move in a fast, consistent motion, you might wonder if there is any resistance at all. That's been my experience with vegetables and potatoes, anyway, which is what this was made to cut. Cheese is a different matter. That is too soft and sticky. The bin catches everything easily, so there are no worries there.
Next, the stuff that takes some getting used to. The washing is generally easy, but there are a couple of support braces on the bottom that are not sell positioned, so cleaning the bottom of the main blade takes some work. Also, using the hand guard takes some practice. It is easy to push the item off the pins before it is necessary, which leads to inadequate support of the food item while cutting. That item can be pulled out of the guard while there is plenty left to cut. It is equally easy not to apply enough pressure and have the remainder of the food item inside the guard while you go through the motion but don't cut anything at all. Once you figure out the right amount of pressure, the guard provides safe operation that barely wastes anything at all.
Now for the unfortunate. When I was looking into Swissmar Borner, I saw some promotional videos (I think on their website) that showed the ability to adjust the height. This model does not have that. There are a few different inserts with different heights, but that is the extent of the possible adjustments. You can do thin slices, thick slices, thick fries, or thin fries. You can dice by cutting the item while it is still on the guard. It would be nice to be able to choose multiple thicknesses for different prep work. The other con is that you have to create your own angle. If you look at other mandolines, you will see many of them are angled, which seems more natural to me at least in some circumstances. This item sits horizontal on top of its bin.
In all, the device is fast and easy to use. It is just missing some of the bells and whistles that I would have preferred.
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I've had a couple of mandolines in the past, and my experience was that they were super cheap and didn't work at all. They were complete piles of junk, and dangerous because they didn't cut well, causing it to stick and your hand to slip.
This one slices extremely well, it's almost scary. When I first got it, I did a trial slice of a red potato. I didn't think it was working properly because there was no force needed at all. I looked down and half the potato was sliced already. When I say no force needed, I don't mean a little force, or hardly any force. I mean it felt like nothing was happening.
I got this because I recently purchased a dehydrator, and need thin, even slices of food. This definitely does the trick. It's pretty well made, has enough attachments to do any thickness I want, and has the julienne slicers at two thicknesses.
The thick straight slice is great for just about anything, and the thin slicer is paper thin. Super thin red onions are great for pizzas, sandwiches, or salads. I am pretty decent with a knife, but I can't slice this thin.
Although the manual specifically warns against it, I tried out the 'spin it 90 degrees' trick to see if it would dice, and it definitely works. Pull it back over the julienne prongs, then twist it, then go down, repeat... Perfect little cubes.
Try dicing an onion like that with the smallest julienne attachment... tiny little onion cubes, works GREAT in meatloaf.
The hand guard thing works pretty well, and normally I feel pretty confident with it.. however I was slicing bananas, and they were just too squishy to use the hand guard. I started doing it without the guard, got distracted for a split second, and almost took off the tip of my finger. Two weeks and about 12 fingertip bandages, and it still looks pretty bad.
It's pretty obvious, but this thing is sharp! If you're an easily distracted monkey like me, don't try to do bananas without the guard. I ended up buying Chef'n Bananza Banana Slicer specifically for that purpose. I'm a musician, so would prefer to keep my fingertips.
Anyway, with more solid foods (onions, potatoes, apples, whatever...) it works very well and is very secure.
The fact that it's self contained and has a tray to catch the food, with a lid, is great.
I'm super happy with this slicer.
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I've had my v-slicer more than ten years. Maybe fifteen. Maybe twenty. I bought it from a professional demonstrator many years ago and her parting words to me after purchasing were, "Be careful. It's really sharp. Always use the handle."
I own cutting boards, all manner of great knives, a cuisinart, a bamix, a vitamix, Chef Harvey's swiss peeler/slicer, and the fabulous "eat more vej-a-table NOW" plastic slicer sold at the Orange County Swap meet for years in the 90's for $19.99 ("and one penny for me make TWENTY DOLLA!")
While I love all my kitchen gadgets, I use the V-slicer the most for slicing/dicing veggies. It's the quickest, easiest to clean, most handy to grab, and does the best overall job on veggies like carrots, celery, cucumbers, (some) tomatoes, apples, potatoes...any firm fruit or vegetable. Makes preparing a good salad easy and fun. And I've taught my young teens to use it too, so I understand that it can be awkward if one doesn't understand how it works.
Pros:
* Versatile. Offers thin & thick slicing plates, then thin & thick julienne cuts, for a total of 6 slicing options.
* Effective. The safety handle provided makes slicing the entire vegetable simple (once you understand how to use it) and makes cutting yourself during use impossible.
* Convenient. The wall-mountable, plastic storage unit keeps all cutting blades together and safely covered/protected when not in use.
* Neat. Easy to clean. Few parts to rinse off.
* Compact. Stores in a small space with all the parts in one place.
* Durable. My original Borner V-slicer has lasted for between 10 and 20 years.
* Time-tested. This design has been in use for nearly 60 years.
Cons:
* Potentially dangerous for the uneducated, dull, or smarmy cook (just like any sharp tool).
* The safety handle doesn't store compactly within the container like the rest of the parts.
In conclusion, this is a superb kitchen tool for slicing & julienning vegetables, for those willing to use it correctly. While there are certainly less effective, cheaper, safer tools out there for slicing vegetables, the v-slicer is the optimal design for generating as many controlled cuts as possible with one movement. Buy it, respect it, love it. Or satisfy yourself with something less.
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I've had the Calphalon 5 in 1 for two weeks now and I've used it three times and I was very happy with the setup, cooking and cleanup each time. We've made panini sandwiches, grilled steaks and grilled burgers on it. The panini sandwiches were excellent. The steaks and burgers were much better than pan fried and the clean up was much easier. We cooked a pound and a quarter of 85% burgers so you can imagine that there was quite a bit of runoff but the little catch tray held the grease and didn't spill. We like our burgers medium well done and that took about 8 minutes.
