Hostess HO392SV Cordon Bleu Silver Side Server > Reviews (1)

We have not had our Hostess HO392SV Cordon Bleu Silver Side Server for that long, only about six weeks, but during thattime we have used it often enough, I think to be able to give a decent review of the product and what we both think of it. It was an expensive purchase at £80. We bought it online directly from the manufacturer, but we have central server warming plate which we use very often at dinner parties and since buying that, we have been tempted to buy the side server one too.

The Hostess HO392SV Cordon Bleu Silver Side Server is a great way to keep your food warm and we use it regularly when we have friends and family to our house for a bite to eat - mainly Friday and Saturday nights. We use the central one in the middle of our dining room table and use it to keep food such as tapas warm / hot etc but the Hostess HO392SV Cordon Bleu Silver Side Server we use on the side table for guests to help themselves to hot finger buffet foods.

We loaned it to our friend two weeks ago as she was hosting her daughter's Christening at her house and she had a lot of hot finger buffet food and was wondering how best to keep it warm for her guests. After she had borrowed ours she swears she will be buying one herself now. We also use it when we are preparing food and want to keep food warm so it can all be served at the same time. It is very versatile and as well as being practical it also looks sleek, modern and stylish, we think.

The Hostess HO392SV Cordon Bleu Silver Side Server is large in size yet looks quite compact and does not stick out too much during a dinner party. The dimensions are H x W x D: 20 x 73 x 30cm and we love the fact that it comes with three Pyrex glass dishes (which have a 1.5litre capacity) and a toughened glass drop down door and a compartment in the bottom which is heated too, which is really handy. We not only use it to keep food hot but we also use it to heat the plates before serving the food, so it does have a lot of uses and we find the drop down door handy for storing the plates inside to keep hot.

It has a resonably long cord and does not take long at all to heat up. It has an on / off neon light and what we really like is that although it is able to keep food hot for a long time, it never seems to dry the food out at all. Probably the only downside to the Hostess HO392SV Cordon Bleu Silver Side Server is that it has no temperature control. We were a little bit disappointed in this as we had researched it beforehand but were not aware of this flaw. It is either on or off, but there is nothing to either turn the temperature up or turn it down. It will not heat your food up for you, but it will keep it at a steady temperature. I would suggest that if yu have small children that you keep en eye on them if they are around while it is switched on as it can get very hot to touch. On one ocacsion I have burned my wrist a I have leaned across to pick at some food. We have used our Hostess HO392SV Cordon Bleu Silver Side Server on a number of occasions now and every time we have used it our guests have been impressed with how long it manages to keep the food hot.

It makes a good talking point when we have friends round. As I say, we use it for keeping curries / rice/ tapas/ vegetables/fries etc hot if we are preparing other foodstuffs in the main in oven in the kitchen at the same time. We don't find it uses up too much electricity either, and have not noticed our electric measurement device rocking skywards when we use this gadget.

We don't find that it takes up too much space and it has non slip feet so it won't move around if you accidentally brush against it as your reach across the table to get food, so we are assured it is safe in this respect when children are around.

The build quality is excellent and it is strong and sturdy. It does not make any noise while it is in use and is silent. When it is brand new and you are using it for the first time it made a strange smell, like it was burning off some plastic smell but we think that was just the newness of it and once we had used it for the second, any third times, the smell became less noticeable and now we can detect no smell at all.

It is easy to store, easy to keep clean, we just wipe over with a damp cloth then buff with a dry one. It is sturdy and looks and feels very high quality and is a brand we know and trust. Great instruction manual and good long guarantee which gives us peace of mind.

Highly recommended by us all as a family.