Travel Hand held Mandolin, any feedback?

I do a lot of prep while traveling and was thinking a travel friendly handheld mandolin might be a tool worth taking if for nothing more than prepping potatoes for hash browns each morning.

Interested to hear any traveling cook's preferences and experiences (and model recommendations):


Models I've been looking at:

KitchenAid V-Slicer
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0090JINY2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20


Chef'n Sleek
http://www.chefn.com/Product.aspx?id=117

Kyocera adjustable
http://kyoceraadvancedceramics.com/adjustable-slicer-w-handguard-492.html

Microplane:
http://us.microplane.com/microplaneadjustableslicer.aspx


Any thoughts?

Benriner. Standard equipment in every Japanese kitchen. Not so big that you can't travel with it.

Anything but Benriner is a waste of money-unless you need really large. Those Kitchen-Aid ones are awful!
http://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/other-items/benriner.html

Thirding the benriner. The small size one could even fit in a knife roll.

Benriner for sure.
Unless you're doing something crazy, you won't need anything larger than the standard size for home use.

I have the normal size benriner (not jumbo). It fits in the mesh pocket of my ultimate edge bag

I will only use the benriner, the French mandolins are garbage compared to them

That benriner one does look nice, but does anyone have any experience with the micro plane one linked above?

Thanks.

Just buy the benni, they are the industry standard.

Seems like it's already a lock, but yeah- get the Benriner.

to buy anything but the benriner at this point would be ignorant. I am sure the microplane one is great however it's not as versatile as.... benriner. buy it. don't abuse it. watch your god damn fingers! you're better off trying to find one for the same price or less than amazon in your local asian market; make sure to inspect the mandoline, I have seen several new ones where the plane leading up to the blade was warped or unlevel- ensure you get a good true plane leading to the blade otherwise you'll never get uniform slices and it'll be a waste of 30 bucks. there is a medium size benriner that I like more than the small one but it is less portable I suppose... know that you'll have a hard time fitting a whole large onion or fennel bulb or head of cabbage on the plane of the smallest benriner. The finger guards are pretty much useless. better to use a woven kevlar cut glove if you're a real baby.

one thing about the microplane the "Straight blade has a safe setting and three usable settings."

personally I'd rather not be forced to use three blade settings because depending on what you are cutting you may need to adjust between those settings to get the size you want. the nice thing about the benriner is that the blade is both removable should you decide to sharpen it or replaceable which vastly improves the life of the mandoline. the benriner also has a plastic screw that makes it fully adjustable. professional kitchens may supply other mandolines sometimes larger units costing over $100 but professional cooks pretty much only carry a benriner, atleast in my experience. haha seems slightly like shilling in that we all recommend the same thing so I guess I'll add feel free to try a different product but pick one with full adjustable straight blade.... the V blades cut weird imo and being stuck to "settings" is too inaccurate again imo. none of the ones you listed meet that criteria.

dont know how much you used a mandoline but the gaurds are useless... obviously the glove mentioned above would work but call me a baby cause I usually use a towel as a buffer. i find the statement true though "its not if it will cut you; its when"

Microplane is fiddly and traps food easily
Kyocera works and is light and easily adjustable - but not close to a pro tool. We use one in a bar for slicing cucumber!
Once you use pro equipment it is annoying to use the other stuff.
Benriner are good - but the safety guard is pretty hopeless. Better than the others for a light travel mandolin.

in my world, the only mandolin besides a benriner (travel size or otherwise) is a musical instrument.

thanks for all the input guys, ordered the smaller benriner one!

mille162 said:

thanks for all the input guys, ordered the smaller benriner one!

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I love it when people actually take our advice!
Congrats!
Make sure to post some pics after you cut yourself!
And O yes, it will happen!

I put my thumb through the medium julienne comb on a benriner back before I had any appreciable knife skills. Having ones thumbnail/bed julienned sucks FYI.

I use a cut glove for mandolin and oyster shucking. Totally worth it.

IndoorOutdoorCook said:

I use a cut glove for mandolin and oyster shucking. Totally worth it.

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This!, invest in a cut glove, mandolin cuts are the worst and the guard is pretty annoying...

I remember when 3 finger Phil used to hang out here. All he used was a mandolin....