Star Wars TIE Fighter BBQ Review

If you enjoy barbecuing and are also a huge Star Wars fan, do I ever have a product for you!! Today I review an actual Star Wars BBQ! More specifically, it’s the Star Wars TIE Fighter Premium 10,000 BTU Portable Propane BBQ, and it’s arrived at Best Buy from a galaxy far, far away just in time for barbecue season. Read on to learn all about how this very cool barbecue performed during my recent period of testing.

Introduction and Key Features of the Star Wars BBQ

The Star Wars TIE Fighter Barbecue is a most unique contraption—in some ways. With its Star Wars TIE Fighter theme, it’s definitely one of the coolest barbecues I have ever seen (it even has reverse “Star Wars” logos on the grilling surface that you can try to cook into your steaks—they’ll be facing the right way once the food has finished cooking). And with its 220 square inch cooking surface, it’s probably best suited to small and medium sized families, or for hosting smallish cookouts. This barbecue, which is CSA (Canadian Standards Association) approved, also cranks out a very respectable 10,000 BTUs of serious grilling power, so the 9 or so burgers that it can hold at any given time (or whatever else you like to BBQ) are sure to cook quickly, freeing the grill’s surface for the next round of burgers, hot dogs, steaks, or whatever! And of course, it’s a standard propane grill, so its very easy to get fuel canisters that fit it.

Note that the photo shown above (with the side trays stored in their vertical position—they also attach horizontally for holding food, utensils, and condiments) gives this barbecue its most TIE Fighter-like appearance. This is because the trays in this position resemble TIE Fighter wings (see photo at left). The front part of the BBQ also very closely resembles the TIE Fighter’s front facing window. Very cool!

Cookout and Testing

To test the TIE Fighter BBQ, my wife and I prepared a meal of several chicken fajita skewers (consisting of chicken breast bathed in fajita sauce, onion slices, and red peppers) and one medium sized steak. You can see how our test turned out in the “Examining the Video Evidence” section below, as we filmed much of the process. To describe how things developed, I would have to start by saying we had somewhat mixed results. While the food turned out delicious, we were unable to get the Star Wars logo to cook into our steak (probably due to not cranking the heat high enough), and we did have a bit of sticking with our skewers. I can’t exactly blame the BBQ itself for either one of these minor failures, though, as we were learning on the fly and probably would use a higher heat and better oil the grill if we were to have a second attempt. Still, we were very satisfied with how the food turned out, and we found that the BBQ overall was fairly straightforward to use (aside from the obvious learning curve that comes with trying any new appliance for the very first time). The photo below shows how our skewer and steak meal turned out.

One thing I will say about this contraption, though, is that as a barbecue it’s a fairly basic unit. If you like for your BBQ to have all of the coolest bells and whistles, this isn’t going to be the best model for you. Much of the attraction here is the novelty of having a Star Wars themed grill, which is sure to be big fun for kids and serious Star Wars fans. I’ll admit that I really enjoyed cooking on it, and not just because the food turned out well. Check out the image below to see how cool the built-in thermometer gauge looks! Taken in conjunction with the overall TIE Fighter theme, it really puts one in the Star Wars spirit when cooking on a BBQ like this.

One further thing I should probably mention about the Star Wars BBQ is just how heavy it is. This thing weighs about 20 Kgs, which is just over 44 pounds, and it honestly feels like a pretty solid unit. The cooking grid itself is made of solid cast iron, so you know it’s bound to be durable. I’ve included one final photograph below to give you a better look at the cooking surface. Note how evocative it is of the Star Wars mythology. That 6 spoked cog symbol in the middle is actually the Galactic Empire crest, so even without the little “Star Wars” logos on either side of the centre line, this BBQ still very much screams Star Wars. In fact, there seems little doubt that this barbecue is in fact the property of the Empire, so if you do end up getting one, you might want to keep it well hidden from the sight and sensors of Galactic bounty hunters!

Examining the Video Evidence

Please take a few moments to enjoy my brief video introduction to the Star Wars TIE Fighter BBQ. In it I do a bit of cooking and try to show off what this barbecue can do:

Final Thoughts

While certainly not for everyone, I must conclude that this very cool Star Wars BBQ is a fun  product of reasonable quality that does the job that it’s intended to do. Whether or not you should get one depends entirely on the combination of your barbecuing needs and your enthusiasm for Star Wars. While it’s not the most full featured BBQ on the market, the results of my testing were more than adequate and extremely tasty. The skewers and steak that we made also cooked relatively quickly—probably no more than about 10 minutes, and cleanup was not at all difficult. I would say that if you’ve got young children who love Star Wars (or if you’re just a major Star Wars enthusiast yourself (this goes for barbecuers of all ages)), then this BBQ has even more appeal.

For Best Buy’s complete selection of Portable BBQs, simply follow the link. That’s all from me for now—may the Force be with you!