Customer Reviews

GT Express 101 Countertop Grill

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(40)

 

 

I had a horrible experience with GT 101 Express company, and I am so glad Amazon is not selling this junk product anymore. I tried to order the item directly from the company and when I found out how outrageous the shipping cost was, I canceled the order. Three weeks later, I received six of these items and were charged over $200 without my permission. When I called the customer service at GT Express, the customer service people told me that I had to pay for the shipping of six items back to the company even though I never ordered these items. I told them this was illegal on their part, and they told me to sue them if I wanted to. What an awful service! Instead of sending all, I decided to use one to maybe save the shipping cost. What a big mistake.

The item is very small. The cooking surface is equivalent to a size of a slice of bread cut into two pieces. It seemed to look so much bigger on TV infomercial. Maybe the people on the infomercial are tiny people to make the item look bigger. Believe me when I say this thing is tiny.

Furthermore, the thing is made out cheap plastic. Even the non stick portion is merely painted black coating. After a few wipes, the black painted coating came off and everything stuck. The thing is a piece of junk and I regret the fact I ever dealt with GT Express.

I had the worst experience with this product and to top it off, I had a horrible experience with the GT Express customer service.

Garbage, complete garbage.
1st off, I was really angry at the cost of shipping/handling. I own my own business and I can tell you from experience that it should not cost that much for these services (there is even a quantity discount). It shouldn't cost more than $4.95 to ship this product.
2nd, you're charged another large amount for the second Xpress, and believe me, this should not be. I've ordered a lot of products that had to be shipped and the more you order the more you save and in most instances, you're not charged 1 cent more for more items.
3rd, you get two machines, but if you wanted to give one away for a gift (college student, friend or child) you have to order and buy and additional cookbook and accessories. Come on, these accessories are not a $50 value, they're probably only worth $6.00.
This product is a complete rip off to us as consumers. The informercial shows beautifully browned and evenly cooked meals, this is not the case. MOST MEALS ARE SOGGY. FAST ~ simply NOT TRUE, the commercial does not include prep time.
Don't waist your money or your time - this product does not work. You'll loose money.

I bought two of the GT Express Cookers from a TV infomercial. They tried to UP-Sell a tone of stuff when placing the order.
The product was advertised at $19.95 ea. Which is OK but when the product & invoice arrived, I couldn't believe my eyes.
Here ya go:
GTX 2 pack Original With bonus = $39.90 (Which included recipe booklets)
GTX recipe collection shipping = $9.95
So Far = $49.85
Postage & Handling = $33.85 (WOW)
Total = $83.70
The units works OK (I only cook eggs in it) but it costs a whole lot more than $19.95. By the way, my gas range cooks eggs a lot faster than the seven minutes this thing takes.

Very first of all: I've got nothing against TV infomercials, and I don't mind trying out things, and I don't expect them to work 100% as advertised or fine. For instance, I have bought the Magic Bullet, the king of infomercials, and like it a lot - it has a good niche and does well what it's supposed to do, even if the commercial overstated everything a bit.

So - when I saw the commercial for this item, I thought, why not? Basically, a waffle iron for breakfast and other food items - sounds like a good idea!

So I bought it. Now, after having received it, and after three days of trying out various meals and recipes, I can say: Not everything looking like a good idea is really one. There are several issues with the concept of a waffle iron for breakfast and other items.

Issue 1: The most important one. A waffle iron works well because it has a specific waffle mix filled in, which expands and gets browned. This is not the case with omelets, or most of the other items supposed to be cooked in this. Eg, if you put in muffin mix, and berries, you simply do not arrive at the same wonderful brown dough and pristine berries they show in the recipe book. It is impossible to get that without high temperatures, baking, and most importantly: letting humidity in the berries and the mix escape. Or when you make an omelet, and add fresh tomatoes, it will simply not come out as nicely browned plus fresh tomatoes. What it will come out most of the time is as a soggy mess: the tomatoes will lose liquidity, but it will simply soak into the egg mix, as it has nowehere to go (as opposed to when being pan-fried). The reason for this is very simple: When you panfry, or when you bake in an oven, the humidity can get away. So things can get crispy. Here, very little humidity can escape (otherwise the other claimed advantage, double-sided browning, doesn't work, sorry), so things just get soggy, soggy, soggy. Did I mention food get's soggy in this? SOGGY SOGGY SOGGY. Super-soggy, at times.

Issue 2: You may say, well, maybe we should do them a little longer? Well, the answer is, this is the second problem. While, just like a classic waffle iron, the contraption does not have any kind of adjustments (lower or higher heat), that wouldn't be much of an issue. Only, it simply does not cook very fast. I would say: it actually cooks very very very sloooowly. I am not sure how much watt this iron gives out, but it can't be more than 25 Watts or so. Your average light bulb heats better. So you simply have to cook very very long. Anything, not only the super-soggy things. And food still is soggy, soggy, soggy!

Issue 3: For me, a smaller issue, but still... while I understand that this is for small, fast portions, it is INCREDIBLY small. It's not like you can do a 3 egg omelet in this. It takes 3 full goes to do a 3 egg omelet (with minimal additions of onions and cheese)! And because it takes a such a looooong time to cook, you will end up with COLD soggy, soggy, and super-soggy items!

Issue 4: Also, this thing is NOT that easy to clean. As you may know, and may have expected, from waffle irons. Non-stick is a fine word, but the reality is, it WILL take you a long time to clean it. Among other things, oil easily drips out the back of it (even when using an oil mister, and after thorough seasoning and cleaning), and goes all over the hinges and wires. NOT nice.

The long and short of it: Pan-frying works better, even for small portions. Get a small pan! Maybe if you need to look at small portions for psychological or dietary reasons, or have a lot of work for soggy food - but even then, why torture yourself!?

So, I guess I will try out some more ideas to see if this thing has at least a niche usage making it worthwhile to keep, or otherwise I will now have to check out how I can return the item.

Think twice. Or three times! Before buying.

I am writing a review on behalf of my parents. My father watched an infomercial for the GT Xpress with buy one get one free. He thought it was a good deal so ordered one. They asked did he want two, he said yes, thinking 1+1=2, but they sent him two separate orders, which equals 4. They also asked if he wanted all this other junk, which he said he didn't want, but they ended up sending a mix and bake set (cheap dollar store bowl and some other junk) and charged $14.95, a recipe collection which I learned you have to call and cancel or they keep sending monthly, at an additional cost of $9.95 + s/h, and P&H which came to a grand total of $68.70. The total of his bill was $180.21. I have called GT Media (800-516-7108) and two of the people I talked to were pleasant but unhelpful, and one person was downright rude and even hung up on me! As other people said, they will return the product less the s/h fees, which of course is how they make their money.

The product - everyone else has said it - small, cheaply made, makes mushy food. My mom has used it a few times and so far the teflon is intact, but it's only been a couple weeks. She made muffins and they were dense and somewhat pasty. Even a toaster oven would be better than this.

The biggest disappointment to me in this whole process was learning that GT Media is owned by GAIAM, a company I used to think highly of. No more. This is a company I will NOT be doing business with in the future.

The product is ok, the unit is smaller than I expected, the wells in the unit are approximatedly 4 3/4" long, and 2 1/2" wide. Not exactly perfect for making anything big like the great wraps they make on the infomercial. If you use a 8" tortilla as suggested, you need to cut in half to fit. I have made some of the recipes which come in the book, and they are ok, I guess it would be more helpful to me to know how hot the unit gets, in order to decide how to use the unit better. It is good for eggs, and it's one attribute is that it is easy to clean up verses a large frying pan. However you can't remove the nonstick plates for cleaning, and part of the design of the case is this small crack between the case, and lower heating elements. This area is notorious for getting batter in it or cheese, and is difficult to clean since you can't submerge the unit. Lots of papertowels, or toothpicks work best. The included special spatula is very very flimsy, and not as helpful as you are made to believe. I will use the unit as a bachelor who doesn't like lots of dirty dishes. Yet this is just another example of how a infomercial can make a so-so product look like it will change your life.

The unit has the typical weird smell when you use it the first time, I would suggest heating it up for about an hour before using it to lessen the effect. On a positive note, the machine is built fairly well, and has a small footprint on your counter, if it wasn't for the use of 1970's technology without interchangeable plates like a waffle maker/sandwich grill, this product isn't really anything new.

I had my GT Express 101 for two weeks and used it according to the instructions. It is good for 2-person simple meals and is an interesting way to encourge portion control. However, after only two weeks of such use, the non-stick coating started to blister off the wells. Any food contacting the hot bare aluminum sticks badly and the rubbing required to clean it further degrades the non-stick coating making it worse. I didn't expect it to last forever but I did expect it to last more than two weeks.

A good quality fying pan is a better value.

BE CAREFUL with postage and handling charges! Product is not bad, probably worth $20 to $30. I ordered on automated phone line and highly discourage that avenue for ordering. It can be purchased on-line. I ordered ONE, received two, should have paid $55, but paid $75. I couldn't send it back, because the additional charges were postage and handling, and I would have had to pay that again, and thus, it would be a "wash". Product definitely not worth $75.

I got my xpress 101 a few days ago and have been cooking with it all day. I've made pizza pies, pizza wraps, ham and cheese wraps and some odd concoction with corn in it. I found that using bisquick(the low fat mix) and low carb tortillas is awesome. it cooks about 5 to seven minutes for the things i like. the funny half moon shape is a little silly at first, but I like this for when I am just cooking for myself and my fiance. This is good for my little lunch meals and breakfasts. I haven't tried meats yet as I am squeamish, but this is definitely recommended for someone who doesn't like to dirty up a whole pot or pan for some small portions of food. As for the cleaning, I noticed that the cleaning if fairly simple with a napkin or paper towel as long as the machine is still hot! Tempering it often with oil is a good idea too!

I purchased this item (after seeing the infomercial) specifically for cooking small portions. It has worked well for that purpose and has a small footprint. It is especially helpful for singles and those on a diet who don't want loads of leftovers. I have tried several recipes from the book as well as "shake and bake" pork chops. The pork chops turned out very tender and juicy, although I will be turning them over if I do them again, since foods only brown well (crisp) if they touch both the top and bottom surface. Egg dishes turn out well, but I haven't had as much luck with the "possible pie." They have a "larger" one for sale and offered it when I ordered it, but I only wanted something very small.