Dallas, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/04/2014 -- A consumer who walks into a kitchen store or goes to a site like Amazon will be presented with a dizzying array of products, many of which will look about the same as the others of their kind. This makes selecting the best ones very hit-and-miss unless more information can be obtained before making a purchase. To make it easier to find the winners, Best of the Kitchen has launched a site that rates the top choices according to a variety of characteristics.

"Kitchen gadgets are made to handle all sorts of tasks, but their value ranges from being great to being absolute junk," said Ron Donaldson of Best of the Kitchen. "For example, consider the salad spinner. This is a device that allows lettuce and other salad ingredients to be rinsed and spun dry in a few simple steps, saving users from having to spend time fiddling with colanders and paper towel. Good salad spinners will work well, look good, and provide good value. Some, however, break down quickly or make a bigger mess than they prevent. We've rated these gadgets according to key traits like quality, price, and even popularity so that buyers know which ones to consider before they ever hit the seller's site."

Another item that has a surprising amount of variance is the colander. This tool is no longer the simple perforated bowl that would have been used 50 or 70 years ago. Instead, over-the-sink models abound. Over-the-sink colanders have frames that allow them to hang over the sink rather than sitting within it like traditional ones do. Some people find this form more convenient because it doesn't need to be held aloft to keep it from touching the bottom of the sink.

Knife buffs have long known that there really is no such thing as a standard knife, but a regular home chef usually isn't interested in reading all about the finer points of cutlery-making just to buy a meat cleaver. Luckily, Best of the Kitchen has reviewed the top 5 cleavers and explained the pros and cons of each one. "One of the most surprising thing we've seen is that price has nothing to do with popularity or overall rating in this category," Donaldson noted. "Our top-rated cleaver is quite inexpensive, while the relatively pricey Henkel's comes in at second place."

Rather than try to rate the appearance of various kitchen tools, Best of the Kitchen has taken a simpler approach: It shows pictures. Other aspects of the products are rated by numbers, which are arranged in easy-to-read tables. This makes it simple to see which items are of interest at a glance.

About Best of the Kitchen
Best of the Kitchen is a new kitchenware review site that rates the top five products in several categories. This layout makes it easy to choose items of interest. Clicking the product links takes the viewer to a retailer so that the desired items can be purchased.