So far, so good. I only did one cook on it (post 5387) but I cooked a pretty good variety of stuff to get a feel for it. I started off with a few recipes from the Blackstone website. If you like onion, give these a shot:
https://www.blackstoneproducts.com/recipes/amish-onion-patties/
I also did their Mongolian Beef but rather than serve it in lettuce wraps, it was served with fried rice and sautéed veggies.
https://www.blackstoneproducts.com/recipes/mongolian-beef-lettuce-wraps/
This thing puts out some serious heat. As you can see in my post, at one point I measured the surface temp at over 500F. That was right after I turned the dial up so I wouldn't be surprised if it gets to 600F+. This can be a blessing and a curse. It cranks out food fast but I was also sweating like crazy working on it.
If you have it on a deck, like we do, you'll want something underneath it as it can be quite messy. We ordered a grill mat for it last night. It's worth noting that there is a known problem on the older model with the drip tray. With how it's positioned, grease runs down the leg instead of into the drip tray where it's supposed to. This can be fixed with a bamboo skewer if you have the old model like I do. Looks like they are selling a new model on the Blackstone website with the drip tray positioned in the rear instead of the side. That one goes for $300 on the website. You can get the old model for $250 at Home Depot.
They have a package deal on the website that comes with a snap-on table so you can have guests sit around it while you cook and entertain. Initially, I thought that would be kinda cool but after cooking on it once, I don't think anyone would want to sit around this thing; at least not in the summer. It just gets too hot.
Overall, it's a lot of fun to cook on. Its a breeze to clean as well. Just squirt some water on it while it's still hot and scrape it down. I'm a big fan of outdoor cooking, especially when we have company. Normally my guests wouldn't be getting fed dishes like that Mongolian beef but with the Blackstone, I'll be cooking that again along with some other fun ones like General Tso's chicken. You can prepare everything ahead of time so when your guests arrive, just toss it on and with all that surface area, you'll be feeding them in no time. When it's done, you don't have a kitchen full of dirty pots & pans to deal with.
If you're considering it, I'd encourage you to browse through the recipes on the Blackstone website for ideas of what you might cook. Sure you can do a lot of this stuff in a wok but you certainly can't crank it out in such large quantities and more importantly, it's just more fun to cook outside!
) at that time. The narrow ends were a touch overdone (which is the way my wife likes them anyway), but the rest was super meaty and amazingly tender.
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