Customer Reviews

West Bend 88533 3-Quart Electric Fondue Pot, Black

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I've used this pot a couple of times since I've bought it for both cheese and chocolate fondues. Overall I'm very pleased. The food is cooked quickly and the clean up time is very fast and easy. The magnet holding the heating cord is genius. When it gets too hot simply remove the cord.

I can think of only two negatives. The cord is very short making it difficult to use. I find the best way to use it for company is to heat the fondue and then carry the pot. Also I'm not sure the heating control is calibrated correctly. The warm setting produces violent bubbles in the fondue. I'm afraid to see what 500 degrees will do.

This is a very large capacity fondue pot - it was much larger than the pots used at our local restaurant, which was a pleasant surprise, you can easily serve a family of six or even eight without constantly reloading the pot. One unexpected thing about the pot, that I think other reviewers have mentioned, is that the temperature is almost too hot. It is nice how fast it heats up, but unless you fill the pot, it can seem too hot even on the lowest setting. I would recommend this more for bullion-based fondues than for cheese fondues just based on the temperature problem, though by setting it on the lowest temperature setting, we were able to have a very good, albeit very hot, cheese fondue.

This fondue pot has some good features, including a magnetically-connected thermostat, which, should detach should someone trip over the very short cord. As someone else also pointed out, when on warm, the heat goes full on, and boils whatever is in the pot, in order to get it up to warm - which is somewhat disconcerting. On ours, the teflon-like coating is chipping on the inside top of the pot after 4 uses (pot is cleaned and maintained per manufacturer's directions).

We've had this fondue pot for more than a year now, and it's still going strong.
Pros: Inexpensive, electric (never buy those fire/fuel based pots, they're terrible). Sturdy, comes with forks, electrical cable is breakaway for extra safety.

Cons: Doesnt have a fork resting ring, so your forks tend to slide around the edge while cooking. Plastic handles and plastic lid handle are less than stellar. Some stainless steel on these two places would have really brought the pot together.

All in all a great purchase.

I have used this pot once since I bought it and it is wonderful. Nice and deep to prevent spillage, and stays hot throughout the meal.
What I served requires a minimum of 2 hours to eat ( required dipping little forks with meat and vegetables in a hot oil to fry it), and the pan stayed perfect the whole time.
Great product, I would recommend it highly

This fondue set is excellent for cheese and meat fondues but not for chocolat.It heat very fast.

I recently purchased the West Bend electric fondue pot and I have been exceptionally happy with it. The product is everything that I anticpated it would be. However, I did not purchase it to use it as a fondue pot, although I may do so in the future. Instead, I intended to use it as an electric sauce pan, a function which it has performed very well. I am a graduate student, and I live in a graduate student efficiency, which means I have one reasonably sized room to live in, a bathroom. and a minimal kitchenette which, unfortunately, lacks anything resembling a stove, save for a built-in microwave oven. Therefore, I have compensated with an electric skillet and, now, an electric fondue pot/sauce pan. The features that make this product especially useful for this purpose are its non-stick surface, its glass cover, a rare feature for fondue pots, its range of temperature settings, which reaches something like 400 degrees, and the safety electric cord.

Of these three features, the cover, which distinguishes this product especially, is the most important one for me, and indeed, it is what caused me to select this particular model especially. However, I am quite impressed with the cord. The removable cord with thermostatic control unit is attached to the pot with magnets, instead of by the more traditional method of a plug. As a result, the power unit is very easy to attach to the pot, and also comes off easily. This is, of course, a safety feature, which is designed especially to prevent the terrible troubles which can result when children pull on these sorts of cords, causing appliances and their contents to fall from counters and table-tops and injure and scald them. For this reason alone, I am convinced that it is imparitive that EVERY such countertop appliance should be so equipped. But, the feature makes using the appliance more safe and easy all around.

As I give this product my highest recommendation, I leave with one point of caution. One must take the temperature settings on the thermostate very seriously. On a high setting, this pot gets very hot very quickly!

Finally, as I been so happy with this product as I have used it, I hope that the West Bend corporation will see the wisdom of marketing this appliance, and ones similar to it, to students generally. I think that there is a large potential market out there for these sorts of things, if they are only properly advertised and packaged. Most students, however, suffer with hot pots, which are quite good for heating water, but less than satisfactory substitutes for sauce pans.

This is an excellent fondue pot; I bought it about three years ago and it's held up very well since that time (although I only use it once every three months or so). Because I like to cook up my own recipes, it's high capacity and covered lid have been features I've really appreciated, as is the quick-detach cord (which has saved my carpet and my hide by preventing massive splashing when I've tripped over the cable).

The only flaws are minor:

1) like other nonstick surfaces, this pot can scratch, so be careful with the interior.

2) It took me a good while to figure out that the temperature control is . . . aspirationally labelled. Don't consider the settings precise; I barely ever use anything other than the lowest setting, which so far has set fondue I've made to a furious boil fairly quickly. The main difference between settings seems to not be the actual heat the pot puts out, but the length of time it will stay "on" before automatically cutting out. With lower settings, the pot will cut on and off, presumably as it exceeds 'maximum' temperatures; with higher temperatures it doesn't do that (it just burns your cheese to a cinder instead).

Because of that, I have yet to risk using this pot for chocolate fondue -- it may be possible, but I don't want to risk scraping burned chocolate out of the thing. For cheese fondues, however, it's been excellent so far, and I highly recommend it for that purpose.

Might make a good deep fryer but this thing is no good for fondue. I followed the directions that came with the unit to make fondue. I turned it on and it started boiling. I could not control the heat at all. On the lowest setting it started boiling the ingredients and then burnt the fondue. I would not recommend this to anyone for making fondue..

This product was awful. The temperature control was so inaccurate that "warm" turned out to be
"boil" and the electric connector would not stay attached to the pot.