Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

pros...this is a traditional french carbon steel pan, which means it needs to be seasoned. it is quite thick and heavy, and for the most part does a pretty decent job of being a frying pan. the pan's thick metal does a good job at keeping a lot of thermal mass and prevents the pan from getting or losing heat quickly. though not as heavy or as thick as a traditional cast iron pan, it is definately more durable. because it is made of carbon steel vs. cast iron, it will take more abuse, not as brittle and can take a bit more of a beating. just make sure to season the pan properly and it will give you years of good cooking memories. cons...one thing that i found not so great about this pan was the actual build quality. i had bought these pans cause i was trying to replace all my teflon pans with carbon steel ones. i had been wandering around my local restaurant supply store and found a very good, inexpensive esu esu japanese carbon steel pan. it was only $25.00 for about a 10 inch pan. the metal is 3mm thick and has a slightly thicker bottom than sides, as well as perfectly centered riveted "v" shaped metal handle. the metal is more of a blue carbon steel and it seasoned very quickly and had become my pan of choice. i had bought their woks as well and was very well acquainted with this brand and it's superior quality control. it was cause of this pan and brand that i had wanted to buy a 12" pan to do bigger batches of food. but it was not to be as the company that ordered the pans for the supply store went out of business. this is where i had to settle for the poorly constructed matfers pan. the matfers pan, are also carbon steel so they passed the non-teflon part of the criteria, but they failed in actual build quality. these matfers pans tend to have some unfinished edges, and some are not even rounded in shape, as if the guy making them just haphazardly threw the metal in the die and didn't center it. worse part are the welded handles, which are often than not welded unevenly, being neither level or straight. that being said, i would not buy these pans unless i could pick and choose the best made pan. sorry, but for me, buying without seeing this pan is not an option. i need to visually inspect the pans and then choose the one that has the least amount of imperfections. there are just too many variances when it comes to build quality.