Me: A foodie dad in the USA who loves to grill and has a couple decades of experience with serious grilling, smoking and outdoor roasting, up to and including whole hogs. Also, I'm an engineering geek that notices things that many less technical people overlook. You: Somebody who wonders if a portable grill is worth owning. My review: (This first review is being written after owning the grill for a week and using it several times. I promise to post updates as regards durability or other emerging issues) I like this grill, and here's why. It's well built. All stainless, quality fittings, includes a heavy gauge propane fitting (note: uses a standard 20lb propane tank, not a camp bottle). It zooms up to 600 degrees (F) in less than ten minutes, and cools to the point I can remove the grate with my bare hand within twenty minutes after I turn it off. The built-in thermometer is accurate and agile (it reflected with perfect accuracy that it was 100F in the Carolinas the first day I set it up). Initial setup required no tools and was no more difficult than unboxing, unfolding, and placing the burner covers and cooking grill in the right place. My first cook were some gigantic boneless chicken breasts I bought at Sams. I thought they were big in the store, but when I removed them from the package for marinating, I double-checked to make sure they weren't turkey breasts... more than an inch thick at the wing-turn even after I broke them out for grilling. I was able to cook them perfectly with the right amount of char by paying attention... even with vegetables on the grill beside them. Steaks were next, and I got a perfect medium rare NY strip in 8 min after preheat. Every working surface is stainless steel, even the burner shields and the bottom of the oven, which makes cleanup easy. The legs fold up and the lid latches to the side, so that you can carry the grill like a suitcase and store it either horizontally or vertically (like you'd store a suitcase). When they say tabletop, they aren't kidding. I stuck a thermometer on the table under the grill after it was preheated to see how much heat transferred. The air temperature rated only 5 degrees above ambient, and I couldn't detect the difference with my fingers. There is a sealed bottom design with a large capacity, removable (slides out to the side) drip tray (also stainless steel) which collects an estimated 2 quarts of drippings, so there's no reasonable way you could overflow onto your tabletop unless you're cooking 50+ cheap burgers at a go. I'm confident that you could cook 4 steaks and 8 pieces of chicken inside on your dining room table without messing up anything if you disable the smoke detectors. What you need to know: 1. The dome is very shallow. You won't be able to cook a whole ham in here, although a pork shoulder just fits. 2. The stainless steel is well engineered, but light gauge. This is to enhance portability and (undoubtedly) reduce cost of manufacture. This means that it heats up and cools down quickly, which is convenient if you're moving the grill around and cleaning it, but inconvenient if you want to heat up a grill and have it hold its temperature, which leads us to my next point... 3. The light gauge steel plus the shallow dome means that opening the grill top to turn or braise will cost you at least 50F, and often 100F. It only takes 1 minute to regain heat again, but purists should take note. This is why I call it a performance bike. 4. Because it cools quickly and all the surfaces are stainless steel, I was able to serve dinner, eat, and then remove the cooktop, burner covers, and drip tray and put them in the dishwasher along with the rest of the dishes. This was my favorite feature of the grill... I've never had one that I could clean with a dishwasher, and using the same schedule I'd use to clean up the kitchen after dinner. This one feature was worth almost as much as I paid for the grill. 5. Indirect cooking was super easy due to the 2-burner configuration and the shallow dome. You can turn on one side, sear your meat, and then move it to the other side of the grill to finish cooking. When you close the lid with the shallow dome, this works better than it works on a Coleman kettle grill. Will post updates.
