What to look for in a mandoline?

Every professional kitchen I've been in uses the simple Japanese Benriner brand mandolines. They are sharp, efficient, and reasonably priced. It is indeed good advice to use a kevlar glove. Microplane sells this one: Microplane 34007 Kitchen Cut-Protection Glove, which I've found works fine.

The Benriner is good, but you should get the wide version. The standard one listed in the answer above isn't wide enough to handle large onions, large potatoes, most beets, and many other things that you will probably want to put through the mandoline.

This is a super-late answer in an attempt to summarize desirable mandoline properties.

• Dishwasher friendly. (For what it's worth, I've found the straight blade to be easy to clean by sponge.)
• Included hand / finger guard. The food-holder design shown here: allows you push the food down down towards the blade as the food gets thinner and thinner; which I've found to be very effective at getting the last little bit of whatever I'm slicing.
• Sturdy construction. (We had a cheap one break and then cut the cook.) This is probably difficult to judge based on packaging bullet points, but generally stick with a known brand, and avoid the cheapest ones.
• Easy to set depth adjustment, so you can slice as thick or thin as the situation requires. I like a dial with the thickness measurement printed on it.
• Changeable blades for plain, crinkle or waffle cuts.
• Removable main blade for sharpening.
• Appropriate size - it should be large enough for your squash, without being so large that you'll never be able to put it away.

As a minimalist chef myself, I have to ask: is a mandolin a requirement in your kitchen? Unless you need hundreds of crinkle cut fries on a regular basis, you might find it more FUN to get great at creating mountains of your own julienned veggies with lightning-fast knife skills.*

That having been said, my non-tested research says simple japanese mandolins are the most affordable and intuitive choice (The Elements of Cooking, page 162). A specific french-style option that Cooks Illustrated recommends, after putting 8 through the rigors of the scientific method, is Oxo Good Grips (standard blade is $69.99; v-blade is $39.99).

*NOTE: Build up speed gradually. Lauren Costello and Russell Reich: To save time, avoid injuries, and do better work, don't rush. No frantic action. First master your craft, then EARN speed as the external expression of internal fluency. (Notes on Cooking, page 10). Poetic thought.

The Benriner is really the only one that professional chefs go for. It's a combination of fantastic Japanese build quality and a very good price. The advice to go for the wide version is good advice, but the thin one out sells it by probably hundreds to one; get both. A good knife costs hundreds these machines cost around 30 bucks. And you can easily remove the blade for sharpening but you do need to know how to sharpen properly. There usefulness is only limited by your imagination. I wouldn't ever be without mine.

I would look for durability. I've personally gone through several mandolines that worked beautifully at first, but quickly and tragically dulled to the point of unusability. Like you mentioned, the food will simply break rather than slice, and my eggplant parmesan would be mush.

Consumer search has a selection of mandolins. This is my outline of their review (which also come from reviews !) so it's a meta-meta-review.

In addition to your criterion:

• Possibility to sharpen the blades
• Waffle cut (I like this one, it's kind of hard --I'd say impossible-- to do it without a mandolin)
• Julienne and crinkle
• Dishwasher-safe

However, you end up with a 180 $ mandolin !