T-FalOptiGrill Stainless Steel Electric Grill 4 Servings 6 Automatic Cooking Modes, Intelligent grilling rare to well-done 1800 Watts Nonstick Removable Plates, Dishwasher Safe, Indoor, Silver

This grill is awesome. The light(and a beep) tell you when your food is rare, medium, or well done. I like this because I"m not that good at guessing and I like not using a thermometer. The first thing I cooked was frozen chicken breast.....since it was my first time I cooked it until after it said it was well done......but by that time it was a little dry.This time I cooked a thick steak from Walmart(yes Walmart), I was worried because it was thick, but anyway, as soon as the light and beep said it was medium well done I took it off.......Wow.....it was perfectly well done.....even this thick steak......and it did not take very long.....having a top and bottom grill that you just close over the meat is great. No turning....no messy grease splatter. This grill is also SUPER easy to clean. The grilling 'plates' are easy to wash, non-stick, but I do spray some non-stick spray on it too just before I put the meat on. Push a button and the plates come off in your hand. Easy to clean in the sink and/or put in the dish washer. Today after the steak I put some asparagus on the grill for a couple of minutes during it's cool down and it came out great, olive oil, salt, pepper. Someone online suggested using frozen asparagus so I just let it thaw out first. So yeah, I debated about this grill....I wasn't sure I would use it much.....but I like it. It's another fast cooking tool I have to make meals with.

Worth the wait! Our older George F Grill bit the dust. This is a higher priced replacement, but worth every penny to get a decent sized plate for two people. All the newer George F's available were too small. This is 10 times better than any GF Grill available - food cooks evenly, fast, and done to perfection. It does all the work, and the manual mode works well too. Cools off fast, not too heavy, perfect for two or more people. I wish I bought it sooner!

Purchased this online just over a week ago.Had a Foreman grill been using awhile. I liked the Foreman grill ok but many times I would overcook my food or the chicken would be a bit dry (probably cause I overcooked it too).The Forman Grill worked well enough. It was the Next Gen version with temp controls. I did like the removable grates which this one has as well.The build quality of the T-Fal is at least 1 order of magnitude better than the Foreman. You can see some of this when you pull the grates or open and close the lid. The grease trap is much larger on the T-Fal. The controls on the T-Fal are fine I would had liked a bit more solid feel to them for the price but they are not bad at all. Just use with some degree of care and feel.Cooked a 1.5" thick NY Strip for my 1st cooking. Turned out FANTASTIC! Used Weber Chicago Steak seasoning and PAM high Temp Non stick spray. It cooked the steak to a perfect med rare and fork tender n juicy. I may or may not have made a better steak on my Weber charcoal grill but that takes about 30-45 mins of prep. This prep took 5 mins.Next I cooked a Frozen chicken breast. Using the same PAM high Temp spray again, set the grill to defrost, poutry and then OK. After a short preheat put the frozen chicken breast on and seasoned it with some Weber kick-n-chicken seasoning . Now doing it this way will take about 3x longer than cooking a chicken breast from thaw. Once it was done I immediately pulled it and cut and tasted it. It was pretty darn good from frozen I will say. Much better than when I use warm water or microwave(microwave thawing I think makes it a little tougher and slightly chewy). By far best same day frozen to done chicken I ever did.I also cooked a thawed chicken breast. This was a Cilantro Lime pre-marinated breast from Wal-Mart (about $5.98). I set the grill to just poultry - then it preheated a bit longer, sprayed on the PAM High Temp Grill spray and let it rip. It was done a good bit quicker than the frozen and was absolutely marvelous! Very very juicy and fork tender. While the results were "good enough" on the frozen chicken to eat and enjoy cooking from say an overnight thaw should produce excellent results. Anytime you quick thaw something you tend to lose a bit of tenderness in either beef or poultry. I have to say I dont think I have made a chicken breast this good over open flame. While I miss the charcoal twang in the taste just a little, the fork tender and evenly cooked state of the breast is simply fantastic.I did burgers from Frozen. I used SAMS Choice Jalapeno Black Angus frozen patties. They are 1/3rd pound thick. I used PAM High Temp Grill spray - Turned out perfectly! Now these were tender and juicy unlike poultry ground beef does pretty well from frozen.My sister came over and made her Salmon on it and LOVED IT! Now if your doing fish DONT use the Pam High Temp cooking spray, Use your normal olive oil or regular spray as I believe the grill presets begin at a lower temp. Use normal olive oil for grilled veggies,shrimp and other stuff.So what is the huge advantage vs the Foreman? Well in a busy schedule it removes a lot of the guesswork out of the time to grill and uses temp presets ,auto thawing, temp change programming and thickness of the selected item to predetermine time to done. And it really does work great! The only caveat to it and they mention it in the guide is if you want a medium rare steak, you cook it to Medium Rare but then let it sit say 5 minutes before eating it , most likely carryover cooking will take it to more Medium done. So stop your cooking about halfway between the Rare and Medium rare color change as I have started doing, let it sit 5 minutes and it will be perfect.This is a great grill for a college student, elderly or someone who needs a fast efficient cooking grill that takes a lot of uncertain guesswork out of cooking.ProsSUPER EASY! Takes a lot of guess work out of cooking meats to desired donenessEfficient - 1800 watts - about the same power as a hairdryer - lot less power than the ovenRemovable grates - Cleanup isnt bad at all about the same as the ForemanFairly compact - fits easily and for me permanently on my counterConsA little pricey - I paid $89 for my Foreman 4 or 5 years ago. This was about 2x that priceAlert beeper - Could be a little louder if your in another room or have noisy kids aroundSoft Touch Controls - I prefer more solid feeling controls

We have purchased several of the original smaller Tfal Optigrill for ourselves and family. From freezer to plate in just a matter of minutes and great tasting grilled entrees are the reward. We purchased this larger version and it is awesome! Very handy and quick for everything from burgers, seafood, veggies and now, even bacon.BUT - the user MUST use commonsense, READ and follow the cooking directions. There are specified limitations and what one might call ‘rare” might mean something else to another cook. Overall, we have used our smaller grill fir five tears right more without a single glitch. However, there were a few tricks to learn - like how to remove a “rare” steak while letting the second steak continue to cook to “medium well”. Generally, once the item(s) are in the Optigrill, we simply wait for the beeps and lights to tell us when the food is ready. Simple as that. Before you use the Optigrill the first time, hand wash and dry the two cooking plates. Lightly oil with olive oil, heat for a few moments in the grill, let the unit cool, gently wipe the two heating plates and they are ready for your first meal. Use cooking spray before each grilling. We always hand wash the plates when cool but they are DW safe as us the plastic grease catcher. This is our most used cooking appliance other than stove top and iris a remarkable cooking tool. Just follow the very sensible guidelines and you will be very happy. For us, burgers, salmon burgers, boneless pork chops and paninis are weekly favs. Eggplant, tomatoes, sliced potatoes, sliced bell peppers and portobello shrooms are equally fun to cook. This larger unit has no problem grilling two 18oz sirloin steaks to medium rare perfection, the grill marks make them look like they came out of a steakhouse restaurant. Just remember to watch the THICKNESS limitations ...about 1.5 inches is recommended but we have gone a tad thicker occasionally without problems. Aside from true equipment failure of this product, proper care and commonsense application should give a boost to any kitchen and cook. Highly recommend without any renumeration.