New Review : Play-Doh Meal Makin Kitchen

Product Description

Mold and make Play-Doh foods with the Meal Makin' Kitchen! Serve up some fun with Play-Doh foods made your way. The Meal Makin' Kitchen has all the tools you need to make, slice and serve your own cooking creations. Mold chicken and steak in the baking pan.

Mold ham, french fries and vegetables too. The cooking tools store on hooks in the back of the toy kitchen. The garlic press creates bacon, string beans, toppings and more.

Don't forget the toast for the toaster! Includes four colors of molding compound, 10 "recipe" cards and more than 20 accessories for Play-Doh cookin' fun.

Top Customer Reviews

One Cool Toy!

By M. B. Anderson

I gave this Play-Doh set to my son today for his 4th birthday and he loves it! He spent close to 5 hours straight "cooking" and "making dinner" for my husband and I. It is a great toy and I highly recommend it for kids who like to spend time creating different "meals" and putting them together themselves. I think that it teaches to clean up when done or the play-doh dries out, to wash the dishes and it's just a lot of fun.

Great fun for kids!

By Susa

NOTE:

At the time of review, this product is listed at over $30 on Amazon- we paid less than half that price locally. This toy IS really great, but look for mid-teens/under $20 for sure.

Net Assessment:

This toys is LOTS of fun, and I would definitely recommend it or give to friends with young boys or girls. I think this toy has great "growth" potential - i.e. it can be used for "cooking" in many different phases, with the child focusing on different aspects and levels of complexity of meal making/assembly as s/he grows.

We got this for our 2 1/2 year old, and she LOVES it. Most Play-Doh "equipment" other than the dough itself is marked 3+ but I thought she should try something beyond the small substitute tools we had found to help her mold Play-Doh at home. Lately she likes to play with Play-Doh at her small table in our kitchen while we get meals ready, and regularly makes "pancakes", "pizza" and other "meals" for her doll, so this seemed like a great fit.

We don't presently plan on buying kid-size toy kitchen equipment, but in many ways I think this mini-kitchen is more fun, because instead of playing with completely pre-made food and just moving things around, she can first *make* her own food, and then put it in the oven, or fry it up on the stove, further manipulate and plate it, and "feed" to her doll, etc.

She likes to tell me that the oven is hot when putting things in/taking thing out, and to adjust the knobs on it. She also likes frying up the noodles/eggs/chicken or other food that she has made with the spatula. The pizza cutter was also a very big hit, as she sees me use one at home. Toast of all colors is also a favorite. After a few minutes playing with it for the first time, she wanted to pause so both of us could find and put on our aprons (obviously, Mom had forgotten about this key step!).

As a parent, I like that the toy is not very big, and everything can be stowed away. Note that a storage box does not come with toy, and the original packaging cannot double as storage, but an adult shoe box or other box would work.

Set-Up:

My daughter plays with this toy on a small wood table, and most of the actual "food prep" (cutting, extruding, molding, etc.) takes place on this table. The stove is used to "fry", and the oven to "bake", and the side table is mostly presentation/temporary storage while playing.

Instructions:

I didn't see any user assembly instructions or usage guidelines with product, not even on the box. They aren't really necessary, but take a good look at the box and how the various items are set up and being used before throwing out/recycling the packaging. For example, there is a little white piece that attaches to the back of the stove as "hooks" for tools - this is a great idea, but I almost accidentally missed this piece in all the packaging!

Quality of Some Equipment/Tools:

Stove:

Great. Oven door opens, and the one large mold or one tray can fit in it. Stove buttons are decals, but there are two knobs on the stove (one for stove, one for oven) that actually do turn.

Side Attachable Table: Have not had stability issues yet but this is not a key component of play at present (mostly just set stuff on it). The flip side of the table doubles as a mold for various foods, so would not expect table to be used each time (we dissemble when done playing and put in a box). Can see how stability could be an issue (if, say, small surface used for "cutting"), but not a deal breaker.

Chicken/steak mold: Works surprisingly well - I didn't think the Play-Doh would unmold easily and was worried that I'd be called in to get the stuff out, but it really does unmold quite well, and my daughter can do it by herself.

"Toaster": Very simple design, but pretty clever idea.

Hand-held Extruder:

The exuder tool works a bit like a garlic press (although not of similar heavy duty quality, don't get me wrong). The extruder tool is *not* a "spaghetti factory" - you *can* make medium-length noodles but you need to stop midway, and refill (possibly with Play-Doh from a larger can than the four cans provided with the set). I don't think the extruder is designed or intended to make really long noodles - the recipe cards show things like cut string beans, and "drizzle" frosting on croissants, but none of these would be very long. It's true as mentioned by another reviewer that when you push down on the extruder that some of the dough squishes out to the sides, but even my 2 1/2 year old understands now to take the leftovers and push back in to keep on exruding. If she loads too much dough into the tool she may require help squeezing at the start.

Extruder shape selector:

At this age, after 2-3 bouts of frustration/I-can-do-it-myself, she can now feed the extruder shape selector into the extruder tool.

Recipe Cards: About 2-3 cards come inside the box. The other cards are part of the carboard packaging and need to be cut out. We store these in a resealable plastic bag when not in use. Even though she is too young to follow the "recipes" exactly (dish suggestions depicted on the recipe cards which honestly even I might not turn out quite perfectly!), she enjoys looking at the cards and organizing them with all her other equipment. The recipes are definitely pretty and a good source of inspiration, but I think most kids will have no trouble thinking up things to make on their own!!

Play-Doh Included:

The tubs of dough included are smaller than a "standard" tub, but adequate for play and in colors that you might not have. We only have a very limited collection of Play-Doh at home outside of this toy, so eventually I can see buying more varied colors (in the standard tub size) to compliment the set-up. Note that, compared with the standard tubs, the overall quality of the tubs included is not as robust and the lip of the lids is not as deep/is a little harder for very young fingers to pry off/put on securely. Definitely not a deal-breaker, just an fyi.

Parent Involvment: My child is probably on the young end of the user base, so I'm more involved than I would expect parents of older children would be. When the tool was brand new I spent more time with her showing her how things worked and helping her get the hang of certain things. I do help with the extruder at times, and generally keep an eye on things, but I don't *have* to sit with her while she plays (although I should add that this toy is also very fun for parents - adds a little creativity to the day!). We put the entire set away in a box when done, so I do help with certain aspects, such as the set-up/take-down of the side table.

fun toy for playdoh lovers

By Stephanie Fox

I bought this toy for my 3 year old daughter who loves playdoh and she loved it ...but the stand that connects to the oven always falls off so we just turn it upside down and play with it that way because there are cool shapes on the underside you can smash playdoh into. overall it is a good playdoh toy for playdoh lovers.

Cute idea but not steady or STURDY enough

By frisky2000

There's little to criticize about Play Doh as far as a fun, squooshy and classic toy to spark imaginative playtime for youngsters; however, this pretend kitchen leaves much to be improved upon. First off, the table on the side does not stay put. The leg is constantly tipping over with the slightest movements, making it frustrating to set up.

The cookie press is fun to create various shapes, but the receptacle doesn't hold much dough, so after about half an inch of squeezing out the design, you need to clean it out and refill. The recipe cards offer creative and fun to make dishes, and the utencils are cute, but I doubt most children can really enjoy hours with this toy.

Great toy but need A LOT OF HELP!!!

By Heavenly Enterprises Midwest, Ltd

My daughter was really excited to get this for Christmas. We opened it and right out of the box she had a great time. As a parent, however, there are quite a few things I would change and became frustrated with. First the side table is NOT a table at all and it is not attached as the picture makes it seem. It's just sort of "hooked" on to the stove which I had to put back together numerous times as my daughter played with it (you can't move it or it falls apart).

It simply does not stay connected. UNDER the table is a set of food "molds" so if you want to use them you have to take the table apart. Second, the cards have to be cut from the outside of the box, which is OK for the durability, but very difficult to cut because they are so thick.

Even though my daughter loves the different pieces, there is simply NO place to keep all the parts together. A storage container would be wonderful!!! They do provide a little hook that attaches to the back of the stove but it only holds 3 of the 6 pieces that are provided. All-in-all the toy does keep my 5year old busy for a long while w/the molds and different attachments. But it is quite the pain in the neck to store and keep up with all the little pieces.

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