Aussie by Meco Travel Lock and Go Portable Electric Grill in Black

I purchased this grill because I have two grills. A large Weber smoke grill and a the regular dome grill. Both are charcoal grills with the larger Weber need wood to keep it stoked. I love to grill fish, chicken and goat and will easily take it out when I am cooking for more than 6 people. Other than that, it stays parked. When I am cooking for myself, I don't want to fire up that beast, so this is why I got this product. And, I really like it but there are some things you must know.First, the bad news. The directions for putting this together are truly crazy. They are incredibly small and I couldn't tell if it was in english or french. Anyway, hope you have a pretty good handyman sense.The other thing, which is not really a bad thing, but it could be. There are no settings on the dial. It is like a regular hotplate settings - Low, Medium and High. If you are real grill enthusiasts this can be offset by getting a temperature gauge.The other thing I forgot to mention, which is not really a reflection on the product. I purchased this because I have a gril pan and I hated the fact that when drippings got on the pan, it smoked. Well, this grill smokes a lot. I have had to take down my fire alarms when I cooked with this grill and if you add wood chips...WATCH OUT. It is best to use this on a patio if you don't want your house smelling like grilled smoked meat.Ok. That's being said. It is great. It heats up like an electric stove. When I put my gauge on the lid, it registered at 200 degrees in less than a minute. I have grilled everything from chicken, fish and fruit (pineapples). It works and it was worth the wait. You just have to remember that you are inside and that just like a real outdoor grill, you must watch your heat. It takes a little playing with but I am glad I don't have to go outside anymore. At least not until the summer.

As a grill, it works just fine. No more or less than what I expected it to do. The problem is that you need a wrench and screwdriver to DISASSEMBLE parts of it in order to clean it. It comes with a little foil tart pan to put in the bottom to catch drippings, but it is completely inaccessible for cleaning without removing the heating element and the top pan. I don't bother with the tart pan anymore; I just slip a sheet of foil under the element, wait for the grease drippings to harden, then pull it out. Anything that spills gets wiped with a sponge, but my wife has to do this because her hands are a lot smaller than mine.On the plus side, the cooking grid fits nicely in the dishwasher and is easy to keep looking new.

I purchased this grill 2 years ago. Have loved using it. The assembly was fairly uncomplicated. The convenience of the electric grill is wonderful. I have used both the gas and charcoal versions of the tabletop grill and absolutely LOVE the convenience of the electric one.However, if it has a serious flaw it would be the durability of the electric element. Ours burned out a few nights ago and I came to Amazon to look for replacement parts and discovered that the replacement element costs nearly as much as the whole grill new costs!I am wondering if there is a secret to maintaining the grill's element in order that it lasts longer than 2 years. Our use of the grill is certainly not every day. We probably (on average) use the grill once or twice a week except for winter time. We don't generally use it much during our short winters here in South Georgia.I am thinking about getting another electric grill, but am so concerned about paying so much for a little grill and have the element burn out prematurely.I wonder if anyone has any suggestions as to maintaining the element?

I don't leave reviews for things unless they really stand out as being a good purchase for me. My husband and I often talk about how impressed we are with this grill and how it's easier than our gas grill was. I bought this grill because my new apartment complex did not allow open-flame grills on the patios. I searched amazon for the cheapest outdoor electric grill that got good reviews and decided on this one (it also comes in other colors, which had good reviews, but I wanted black). I had planned on buying a table to put the grill on, but ended up just using a wooden TV tray that I had which worked out just fine.I had never used an electric grill before so I didn't know what to expect - would it take forever to cook, would things taste different, etc. Turns out things taste exactly the same as I remember them tasting on the gas grill. I just preheat it on high for about 5 minutes, put the food on, close the lid, and come check on it every 5 minutes or so. I leave it on the highest setting all the time. I've grilled chicken, steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs, crab legs, veggie burgers and catfish. I don't remember my gas grill cooking hamburgers this well actually. It's not easy to burn food on this grill - I've forgotten about my hamburger and came back like 15 minutes later to find that it hadn't burned the side facing down, just started cooking the other side, so I didn't really even need to flip it. I use it maybe once or twice a week. I've had it for 8 months now and besides having a little grime on it because I never clean it, it works good as new.Putting it together was easy, not very many steps, probably took 15-20 minutes. It's a pretty good size, you could easily fit 4 hamburgers on there with plenty of room around them. I use it for myself and my husband though, so I haven't put a ton of food on it at once. Amazon doesn't have a lot of information or photos of this grill, so I would recommend looking on other websites for more photos and specs.Overall, I would definitely recommend this grill, I can't think of any features it is lacking that I need. Since I always leave it on the high setting, I just plug it in, cook my food and unplug it, it's really easy.