Does anyone know of a comparable grill to this one? It seems like it has everything I want in a grill. Hopefully someone can give me some first hand experience. A website touts..."You can bake - steam - sear - roast - bake - boil - fry - smoke and use charcoal on this grilling wonder." If it does all that then I'd seriously consider this one. http://www.finesgasappliance.com/vidalia.html http://www.vidaliagrill.com/model983.shtml#

Oh! I just noticed as I was closing the tab--a big difference is that this is stainless and the Gagg is chrome. After some heavy usage the C-N-D might look...used. The Gagg ones look nice if cleaned properly (the distributor recommends using a lemon half to wipe it down). That shouldn't be a problem with the C-N-D if you have a realistic idea of what stainless cookware looks like when it's used. OMG!!! I just saw the portable! I didn't get the Gagg teppan yaki I'd originally spec'd for several reasons, but I could seriously love their 24" portable. Put a board over the induction and stick it right under the hood. Take it outside on a fair day. Do you know how much these cost (whichever one you're looking at)? Do you have a showroom near you? I don't have time to go looking now, but there is one on the other end of things here (about an hour drive). If it makes you feel any better, Hammacher Schlemmer sell one of the carts.

Consumer Reports: For certain items, their advice is good (things like digital cameras, cordless phones, some appliances, etc.). The advice seems unbiased and reliability data is gathered from consumers. But for things like cars, I believe the editors have a strong bias against US manufacturers and the "scores" in their ratings include subjective categories like how the car feels and its styling---things that don't mean a hill of beans. Somehow, someway, an imported car (typically Japanese) will always "perform" the best in their tests, even if objective data like 1/4 mile times and braking distance is better on the domestic. The overall score ends up lagging if the GM product is "long in the tooth" or has "shiney plastic on the interior trim" or other nonsense. Honda somehow does everything perfectly as far as CR is concerned. It cracks me up to read their ratings of wine and ice cream---things that they have no business rating since it's all a matter of personal taste. Then for something like a mattress---part of it is comfort but part is price and how well it's made---they seem to have no opinion at all. Decking? Well, I think they pretty much admit that they don't know it all. I evaluated a bunch of them for a deck and screened porch I'm having built. For a variety of reasons, I wanted composite on the deck portion instead of wood (wood in the porch). In the end, I settled on Fiberon Professional Series with the slots to accommodate hidden fasteners. The contractor I hired seems most comfortable with this particular material as he has specified it many times before and seems to have satisfied customers. I liked the darker brown color enough to go with it. I tested it against the Fiberon "Tropics" which looks nicer to me, but I didn't like how easliy "Tropics" scratched. Pro Series took harder keying before showing gauges. Also, he gave me a better price on Pro Series. One material I liked is Pro Cell which I guess now is called Azek Deck. It's lighter weight and I think all plastic with no wood fill. The colors were a little light in shade---like pastel---but the material was nice looking, like painted wood. Evergrain was nice, but not reversible. I heard good things about Geo Deck, but didn't like the look as much as the Fiberon, and it didn't feel as substantial. I might regret not picking the Azek Deck because over the long haul, it probably ages better than the Fiberon, but I do think the Fiberon is a good product in its own right. "Veranda" is made by Fiberon and appears to be the same product but with the HD label on it. Fiberon is 2nd to Trex in Sales, but has not had nearly as many issues reported as Trex has.

I can't tell from your photo exactly what you have, but it appears to be some version of the classic Jenn-Air cooktop (some of which were rebranded as Maytag, Whirlpool, or GE). Your specific model may no longer be manufactured, but they've made the same basic design since the 1960s and the cartridges/modules are interchangable between nearly all of them and remain readily available, so the new burner cartridges fit into most of the old cooktops and vice versa. All of them allow you to remove the grill and replace it with a two-burner module. Some also allow the burners on the right side to be upgraded to a smoothtop radiant module; but on others the burners on the right can't be removed. If you see a rectangular frame around them that's roughtly the size of the grill on the other side, your burners are in a removable cartridge. Lift the front or back of the cartridge and it will lift out. The currently available coil cartridge (JEA700ADB) looks like this: That is what your right side should look like if it's removable; if not, you can still remove the grill on the left side and replace it with one of these, which will match the general appearance of the existing coil burners on the right side. (the grill pops out and will have similar electric pins on the opposide side from the one you pull upward). Or you can upgrade one or maybe both sides to these A122B radiant burners, one 6" and one 8", which look like this: The only cartridges that won't fit are the wider "Expressions" ones with the electric pins on the left or right side of the cartridge rather than the front or back which they now call the "Designer Line" series. Also, if your cooktop is made by Amana it uses a different shape altogether. But most of these cooktops can accept both older and newer replacement cartridges. Used ones (and some new ones) are all over eBay and Craiglist as well. They used to make some styles they no longer sell, including halogen burners (A126 or A126B, my favorites) that turn on and off instantly, soild disk burners, and even induction burners which are hard to find and expensive if you do. Grills and griddles are also available. You just need to verify that the grill cartridge in your cooktop has the four electrical pins at the end (with a fifth unused hole) and that the dimensions are roughly the same. Another issue if you replace the entire cooktop with the Ikea one you linked to is that your existing cooktop has downdraft venting, so unless you also have an exhaust hood over the cooktop, you'll need to add a separate vent hood or a raisable downdraft exhaust behind the cooktop, as the Ikea cooktop doesn't have built-in downdraft venting. Anyway, find the model number (often under the grill cartrdige on a placard, or underneath the entire unit) and then you can be certain which new (or used) cartridges will work with your cooktop. Here is a link that might be useful: Jenn-Air cooktop parts & accessories (click 'View All')