Panasonic SU-X2BU microwave oven.

I recently became the proud owner of the aforementioned Panasonic unit and thought a review might be in order for you discerning cooks out there.
First of all, here's a shot of me taking my new microwave from the showroom. The price was excellent, and they were having a special deal on TVs and VCRs but I was in too much of a hurry to take them up on the offer.


You can see that the proprietors were wishing me well with my new acquisition and offering me a variety of kitchen utensils to go with it. Needless to say, I refused to take them up on the offer and quickly jumped into my friend's waiting car and we sped off back to my house to test the little beauty out.


Upon first opening the unit, I was surprised to find what I believe is a non-standard extra for your run-of-the-mill microwave oven. The little fella seemed a bit fiesty but I soon managed to get him out of the house. The cuts will heal pretty quickly, I'm sure. Not so sure about getting the stink out of the carpet though. You know, I'm not too pleased with the finishing on the unit here - looks a little dirty.


Anyway, I installed the unit and tried to think what would really test it out. I'm a little hazy on the inner workings of microwave ovens but bear with me.
First of all, I figured I'd run through the feature set - just so you know what you can do with this thing. As you can see, the front panel features a number of settings with the young bachelor in mind. Simple one-touch operation for a variety of meals makes cooking a breeze. Power settings seemed acceptable, with the ultra-high "nuclear" useful for finishing a Sunday roast in 3 minutes. The manual goes on to mention possible cancer risks and the fact that metal objects should not be within 10 feet whilst using this setting but you know what manuals are like - always erring on the side of caution.


Anyway, I decided to go with testing this fabled "nuclear" setting and donned my standard cooking outfit. As you can see, the wide door of the Panasonic allows easy access for all manner of utensils and footstuffs. Here I'm putting a batch of Pappa Lazarou's "Chile Grande del Fuego de la Locura" into the Panasonic for a little heating.


I punch in the power setting and then give it a time. I'm thinking about 30 seconds should be okay so in it goes and I press the START button. Here you can see the unit in action, which seemed to coincide with a strange power outage with the lights in the house. Odd. Anyway, you can see the great power that the Panasonic is producing by the blue light (called Cherenkov Radiation in the manual. Might be a weird "engrish" translation or something.) For some reason my fillings start aching about this time.


And the results? Fantastic! The food was cooked to perfection, and by that I mean that the chili stripped the varnish of the dining table and the dog went and hid in the shed.
Well, I know what you're thinking. "How about cleaning the bugger?" With industrial strength chili such as this you need an efficient and powerful cleaning solution. Let me tell you that the Panasonic does NOT let you down in this area. Not only does it come with the range of cleaning utensils shown below, but it is resistant to most forms of biological or chemical attack.


Here you see a shot taken after I'd prepared the chili. As you can see, the interior shows a slight amount of heavy soiling that is likely to require some serious elbow grease if this were a normal oven, or perhaps dynamite. With the Panasonic, though, you can use cleaning equipment that is more normally associated with demolitions or advanced aerospace companies.


In this instance I used a subtle combination of laser cutting and organic chemistry. There's not much that can stand up against a kilowatt laser and half the periodic table, let me tell you.
Here I'm loosening up the major boil-over with the laser.


So, what's the verdict on the Panasonic SU-X2BU? Two hearty thumbs up! Apparently it's available from many Eastern Bloc countries right now and the Middle East is showing massive interest so place your orders early!