Cuisinart 22" Round Flat Top Gas Grill

SUMMARY: With a learning curve, the 360 griddle consistantly cookes food really well. It seems fairly well built and the griddle iron itself is heavy and of very high quaility. There are some serious design flaws though that I've noted below. Overall though, I like this griddle and plan to use it for as long as it lasts. I will probably replace it with a traditional griddle because of the space it goes in. FULL REVIEW: I have been using the griddle regularly for about 2.5 months now. It is an important part of my budget outdoor kitchen (see photos). But there are important flaws in the Cuisinart 360 griddle to discuss. PLEASE NOTE: This review is about the regular griddle NOT the Cuisinart 360XL model. Positives First: The griddle surface itself is great and beautiful to look at and cook on. It is a showstopper. I went out of my way to really season the cooking surface carefully before food ever touched the surface. I took the first afternoon to lay on 9 layers (yes 9) of lindseed oil to season the griddle which I bought specifically for the purpose. I cooled the griddle between seasonings. SI also re-season it after about every other use or whenever the surface shows that it needs it. So far, that seems to have worked to protect the iron from rusting but we haven't gone through a rainy winter in the NW yet. The lid is sturdy and the rest of the unit seems pretty well constructed, but it is a bit wobbly when moved. Putting it together was pretty easy too. The circular grease rail is wide and very easy to wipe down. It works great! Like the base assembly, it could be a tad heavier gage steele. Negative Qualities: The biggest design flaw, and it is a serious flaw in my opinion, is the drip tray design and its location. It should lock in place and be placed nearer to the front. As it is, the tray is opposite the front, ostensibly to keep the visual flow of the griddle intact from the front and side views. If the griddle were out from walls and the user could cook from any angle, I guess this first critique wouldn't count quite as much, but I do have it in a space were it is against a wall. There is limited access from the sides and even more so when accessing the back (see photo). This means that when the griddle is hot, I have to lean over and around the hot griddle to reach the drip pan which is a seriously awkward maneuver. A lot of heat comes out from around the griddle too. I have midly burned myself a couple of times doing this so far. To be completely safe, I guess I co making it even harder. I know I could let the griddle cool before removing the tray but that is inconveniant in daily usage. And there are times when it has filled up while I'm still cooking. Most worrisome though is that THE DRIP PAN COMES OUT OF ITS SLOT WAY TOO EASILY. There have been a couple of times where I didn't empty the drip tray after cooking. And when I put on the Cuisinart griddle cover, the tray came out of its shelf and dumped grease all over the propane tank and lower parts of the griddle. It was a mess and a real pain to clean. I did this twice before dense me figured out that the tray just had to be emptied after every cook. Sadly, the tray is just crummy design and potentially dangerous. It is by far my biggest complaint about the Cuisinart 360 griddle. 360 Griddle Elements That Might Be A Turn Off for Some: Like others have said, the griddle has definite hot and cold zones. For mine, there is a wedge shaped area that is very hot. If you think of the peace sign overlaid onto the circular griddle, the right upper third is about 100 degrees hotter than any other part of the griddle. The lower third is coolest and the left third is in between. Again, like others have said, that is fine when you learn the griddle, but it would be nice to have more control over surface temperatures. Additionally, the areas are relatively small so I find if you have a quantity of things to cook simulaneously like English muffins, the chef has to move things around constantly to make them come out at the same time. This is a pain. As to propane use, the griddle has to operate with both gas nobs on full or near to it in order for the cooler parts of the griddle to get hot enough to cook most foods. I don't have anything to compare it to, but I would estimate I get about 5-6 hours of cooking from each tank of propane. Make sure you think through how much you will want some vertical surface to push food against, to assist the chef with getting that food onto the spatula. The lack of a does make removal of some foods a little extra challenging, but for me that was a fun challenge. It's circular for Pete's sake! A final picky point is the casters which are small and cheaply made. The wheel lock pedals are ridiculously flimsy. I am tempted to buy better ones to replace them. I would also like larger casters as the unit is a little top heavy. Cuisinart should fix this too. Lastely, the lid, which so many people praise, I find generally unusable for actual cooking. It is important when seasoning the grill and to cover it between uses. This lids is well made and works, it's just too big to used for most actual cooking. Most of the time, I only need to cover a part of the grill, but not the entire griddle surface. Think: melting cheese on burgers while grilling bacon or buns at the same time. I want to cover the burgers but not the other stuff. Instead, I use the cuisinart melting dome (see photo) instead of the lid. The smaller dome works better for most of my cooking sessions. To store the lid, the chef hangs it off the grease rail like a Webber Kettle lid. The first problem with this is that the griddle's lid gets in the way of cooking on the griddle when hung this way. It is difficult to cook around it. So instead, I find myself hanging it from another grill rather than on the 360 griddle. That all said, the lid is good to have and well made. In fact, I can't get the entire griddle hot enough to season without it. Certainly, I wouldn't want to go without a full lid, but they need to figure out a better system for hanging it when not in use. I think I will use a towel rock screwed into a wall or my fence to hand it on. You will definitly want to purchase a smaller melting dome if you go with the Cuisinart 360 griddle. I would suspect that the larger XL lid would magnify these problems. Final Thoughts: I do have reservations about this grill, but it is still a great alternative to the rectangular griddle for the backyard chef. Overall this thing is really fun to use and has turned out great food cook after cook. So far, I have made shrimp fried rice, English muffins, Chicken fajitas, BLTs, seafood fettachini along with breakfast staples like hashbrowns, eggs and I even heated the dutch oven used for deep frying the chicken fried steak and a pan for sausage gravy (see photos). It has produced quality food especially once you figure out the temperature zones of your griddle. From a purly cooking standpoint (and I guess it is the most important) it is an excellent griddle. But the design flaws I've discussed are enough that knowing what I know now, I might have chosen a different griddle. That said, I'm very pleased with the 360 Griddle. If you can put it in a place where you can actually walk entirely around it while you cook, many of those issues would be reduced or eliminated. Conclusion: I fully recommend this griddle but with reservations.