Filling up your kitchen with novelty cookware is fun at the start. Once you start racking up a few too many of the darn things, though, it can get overwhelming. Like we said, however, it’s fun at the start, so if your kitchen is not yet inundated with Loch Ness creatures, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, and other quirky concoctions, you’ll probably be interested in picking up Ototo’s Pan Man Spatula.
A spatula styled to look like a superhero taking to the skies, the cooking utensil lets you flip your food over with the help of a superpowered caped crusader. Whether you’re making blueberry pancakes, tossing a stir-fry, or flipping a burger, this thing will be ready to assist you every step of the way.
The Ototo Pan Man Spatula has a superhero flying with one arm raised at the top of the handle, with an extra-long cape hanging from his back. That cape makes up the rest of the handle, then curves towards the end to form the broad and flat blade that you can use to flip pancakes, turn burgers over, and scrape those parts of the scrambled egg that get stuck in your stainless steel pan. Truth be told, we’re not sure if it’s any better or worse than any spatula you already have in the kitchen, but, at least, you can imagine it performing some amazing feats because it’s, you know, super and all.
As you’ve probably noticed, the caped vigilante has a likeness based loosely on the Man of Steel, with its brushed-up pompadour and red-and-blue color scheme. Do note, it also comes in a yellow-and-gray variant, so you can pretend your other spatula is the same superhero from another dimension just like they like to do in comic books. That, or it’s the red-and-blue’s supervillain arch-enemy.
The Ototo Pan Man Spatula has a perforated blade, so oil can fall through freely, with flat edges for those times you need to scrape food off the pan. From what we can tell, you’re supposed to grab the spatula by the superhero’s body, so we’re not sure how convenient this thing will be to use, although the shape looks like it tapers accordingly to give the cook a substantial grip. There’s no hook anywhere on the spatula, which makes it a bit problematic to keep in most kitchens, although the superhero does have a magnet in him, so you can stick it to steel fixtures (steel cabinet doors or a stainless steel frying pan you have hanging somewhere) if your kitchen has them. If you don’t, you’ll probably have to keep it in the drawer like most utensils with no integrated hooks.
Dimensions are 33 x 7 x 5.6 cm, so it’s around the same neighborhood as most spatulas as far as size is concerned. Construction appears to be silicone, much like most of Ototo’s cooking utensils, so it should hold up to both high temperatures and your nightly cooking tasks.
Slated to come out next month, the Ototo Pan Man Spatula is priced at $16.