Showing posts with label servingware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label servingware. Show all posts

5/31/2025

BLANDA BLANK Serving Bowl (Stainless steel, 20 cm)

I've had two of these in different sizes for years. They are perfect for everything and anything. Although they can be used to serve snacks, salads, or diced fruit, for example, I mostly use them during cooking preparation and to prepare marinades. The quality is excellent, and they are unbreakable due to being made out of a single stainless-steel curved piece with no edges. I'd dare to say that these last a life time. They lose their bright patina over time, but they will still look great and almost as new. Easy to clean and stackable. Dishwasher safe.
 
DESIGNER Anne Nilsson


3/02/2025

LAGG Pot Stand (Green, 18x18 cm)

I've had this silicone trivet for almost 10 years and it still looks contemporary. It does the job perfectly and can be stored anywhere as occupies barely any space. Probably, the colour is the only thing that has aged, but leaving aside the colour, it's still a great piece of design at a killer price. It's dishwasher safe and stands temperatures of up to 160°C. 
 
DESIGNER Sarah Fager.

2/28/2025

OSTBIT Bamboo Serving Tong

 I love anything bamboo so I was delighted to find a tong in this material. Price was cheap, the design beautiful and I urgently needed a replacement for my broken tong. I choose this over a metal tong because I like organic materials, especially bamboo. My delight was short-lived. This tong grip is not good. It doesn't open/close properly, so it's difficult to comfortably grab anything with bulk. It's not specially good for salads either. I don't think that the Ikea Sweden team was inspired the day they created it. I don't recommend. 

DESIGNER Unknown.

CITRONHAJ Salt & Pepper Shakers (8 cm)

This set is made of glass and stainless steel and the screw top can be open to refill. They can be used to store any spice, not just salt and pepper. The cap has two rotating sliding blades under which there is a set of small holes and a large aperture.

I don't use this set on my table as it looks cheap and not especially elegant. I use them in my kitchen when I'm cooking and only because I  don't want to dispose of them. In all honesty, I won't buy any more of these to store any spice as the cap sliding blades aren't fasten enough and  they open easily at random. Besides, the holes are too big and not many, so I cannot properly get the right dose of spice. 

Although I paid very little money for them, I got what I paid for. I don't recommend them.

DESIGNER Friso Wiersma.
 

1/06/2025

Evanda 2-pc Gold Serving Cake Set

I decided to buy this set after reading many great reviews on Amazon. This is a gorgeous cake serving set with spatula and knife. It's made of stainless steel but coated in a luscious vintage-like gold engraved with a swirly beautiful pattern.
 
Both pieces are very long, which comes handy for large cakes. I expected the spatula to have a large surface and the knife to be wider, honestly. I found the knife not good to cut fluffy sponge cakes, and it destroyed the serving experience and the cake top bent downwards. Not sure if it would be the same with a more solid cake. The spatula is good overall. 
 
Both pieces are sturdy. I tried to bend the handle by forcing the handles a bit, but they didn't bend. They're dishwasher safe, but I washed them by hand, just in case, and they were as new afterwards. 

Price is great for such a beautiful good quality set. 

Maxwell & Williams White Basics Diamonds 3-Tier Cake Stand (Gift Boxed)

I wanted a simple but elegant stand for a gathering at home without having to spend a lot. This seemed perfect, as it looked great on the photo, is from a brand I usually trust, and was heavily discounted.
 
After delivery, I have mixed feelings about this stand. On the one hand, the porcelain is good quality and the relief diamond pattern is elegant and classy. Once mounted, the stand looks fabulous.
 
My main issue with the stand is the mounting system. Actually, the mounting system is OK; it's the screwing system. Despite the assembly instructions being quite good, it took me several attempts to get the stand to stand firmly on the table. By the way, I recommend starting from the bottom dish up and not the other way around.
 
Secondly, the white plastic protective washers aren't the best quality and can be easily damaged. Besides, the box doesn't come with any spare part. This being the case, if you lose any of the washers or they get broken, the stand cannot be used anymore because, if we apply the metal washers directly onto the porcelain, they scratch it and stain it. What's more, the plates would not stand firm and straight at all.
 
Thirdly, the metallic bar handle isn't stainless steel. Why not?!!! The packing box doesn't say which material they're made off, something that really annoys me. Also, this metal leaves some sort of "soot" (to call it something) on contact with the porcelain if not using the washers and when unscrewing the metallic parts.  

Only hand wash, and you must dismount the stand first and be careful that you don't lose any washer.
 
In short, the finesse of the porcelain is wasted by the poor quality of the metallic parts and screwing system.  I only paid $18. However, the product is back to its usual $28 and I think that I wouldn't want to pay that for this stand. 

12/26/2024

Sevensun 6-piece Small Wooden Teaspoon

This set of spoons looks as fabulous in real life as in the photo. They are great for my large containers of loose tea, sugar, coffee and chocolate. They are a bit bigger than expected for a spoon that is described as small and mini in the product info page. As you can see in my photo, they are as long as an average teaspoon. They are deeper than the metallic spoon on the photo, so the quantity you get is almost the same or a tiny bit less. In that regard, I was disappointed as I expected this to be a mini spoon not an almost average teaspoon. Now, this is not a spoon that I would use and wash every day due to the use I give them, but I've washed them by hand and it I didn't notice any decolourisation or scratching. In short, a lovely set of wooden average teaspoons that can be used for different purposes, but not mini by any means. 

Maxwell & Williams Teas & C's Dahlia Daze Sky-Blue Platter (33x15cm)

This is part of the Dahlia Daze tea set sky-blue line, which is sold by the piece. This can be used as a try to hold the matching milk jug and the sugar bowl or as a serving plater for small petit-fours, or cheese & crackers, or small cookies and chocolates, or just for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. In that regard, it's very versatile. I'm visually driven, so I tend to put my food on dinnerware where the colours of the food stand out over the plate where they're place, that is, where both the food and the plate style create a visually appealing combination. And this is, to me, the major flaw of the tray. The gorgeous design visually overwhelms anything you put on it. Besides, unlike most of the brand's china, this line and tray are not dishwasher or microwave safe.

10/30/2024

WHJY Blue & White Ceramic Bowl Gift Set (Sakura, 10 oz)

I use this set of bowls all the time mostly as side dishes, to store small quantities of leftovers, and also to serve fruit, ice-cream and deserts. Beautiful porcelain and motifs perfect for everyday use but still fun and beautiful. The set comes beautifully packed, so it's perfect for gifting.These ceramic bowls are microwave and dishwasher safe.
 
My only complaint is that the blue colour in the photos and the colour of my set is completely different. The one in the photos is a light Mediterranean kinda blue. The one I got is more an Indigo blue; still beautiful but not as much as the one in the product page photos. 

10/26/2024

Maxwell & Williams Teas & C's Dahlia Daze Sky-Blue Creamer (230 ml)

This jug is part of the Dahlia Daze blue background porcelain tea set. The whole collection is gorgeous and very arty, like a materialised watercolour in your hands. The set pieces are sold individually.
 
This jug is one of my fav pieces. It's not just the beauty of it as it looks like a hand-painted watercolour. It is also that it is very practical for me, something I use almost every day. I love having small milk jugs or creamers beside my tea pot or coffee pot. The piece comes is a gorgeously designed beautiful good-quality box, perfect for gifting. 
 
The main downside is that, unlike most of Maxwell & Williams porcelain products, this one is not dishwasher or microwave safe, the latter I guess because of the gilded motifs. I love hand-washing, and that's not a problem, but not being microwave safe it's just annoying because it forces me to warm the milk in another container and then pour it into this. Just senseless.

Maxwell & Williams Teas & C's Dahlia Daze Sky-blue Sugar Bowl

This sugar bowl is part of the Dahlia Daze blue background collection. Although very artistic. it has no designer or artist name attached to it.  It's part of a tea set, but each piece is sold individually.
 
This is a beautiful piece regarding colours, design and shape. The golden accents enhance the watercolour-like floral design. The shape and size of the bowl makes it perfect for either its original purpose as a sugar container or, as I do, as storage bowl to keep small chocolate pieces, cookies and other sweet treats. I see this also as a perfect trinket box. It comes in a gorgeously designed beautiful box, perfect for gifting. 
 
The main downside of the this piece is that, unlike most of Maxwell & Williams porcelain, this one is not dishwasher safe, the latter I guess because of the gilded motifs. On the other hand, the need to use the dishwasher is nothing needed to do often with this sort of container.