Alligator 11-1/4-Inch Slicer

I'm a huge fan of the Alligator dicers and was eager to try this slicer, but I'm not entirely impressed. First of all, it's heavy and has more parts to clean than its cousins. The disassembly and reassembly for cleaning is a bit awkward and being a bit of a klutz in the kitchen and always in a hurry, I'm not sure I could avoid getting cut on those blades. It's pretty much impossible to get cut on the dicer blades, even though they are sharp, because of the small grid and ease of just rinsing the thing off. This unit is quite a bit more elaborate and both top and bottom sections have to be taken apart for cleaning, leaving the blades more exposed than I'd like. They are also set in a tier arrangement (like bleacher seats set on edge) which makes the slicing more effective, but handling less safe. That for me is the downside.

On the upside, the unit slices most things really well. My first test was a tomato--a cruel test to start with :) but it passed with flying colors, cutting cleanly without squashing the tomato at all. You are limited in the size of tomato you can use if you want to slice a whole one, however, as the round grid is little more than 3" in diameter. Second test was a block of cheddar, something that is notoriously hard to slice evenly with a knife. This also sliced beautifully. I expected it to do a good job on things like carrots, zucchini, cucumbers and the like, and it did, but I'd be less inclined to use it for those things regularly because my beloved Microplane adjustable slicer works well for those too and I use the food processor for large quantities. Next test was a lime and although it did slice correctly, the juice squirted all over the place. It did eggs, strawberries and mushrooms perfectly, but that's to be expected. The only thing that didn't work was a ball of mozzarella, which got hopelessly squished and torn.

Bottom line, the product is well engineered (perhaps over-engineered) and very effective for some things, but needs a careful, patient hand for cleaning and the grid size does limit the amount of produce you can slice at one time.

I bought this for my coworkers that I manage at a local Italian restaurant. My boss didn't seem as excited as I thought he would be (though he IS a penny-pincher), but the hostesses/salad girls loved it at first cus it really saved time slicing tomatoes when we're busy, now after using it for awhile and a little misuse of it slicing itself (people were not careful to slice straight down) it doesn't work nearly as well.

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