Counter argument: there is no point putting money in a rice cooker. Get the cheapest and smallest one (unless you're cooking rice for 6+ people) and you will get exactly the same result. The only annoying thing with these cheaper rice cooker is that you need to unplug them when done, but I bought a switch to sit between the socket and the plug and it works fine :)

Disagree completely. Used to have a cheap rice cooker and it sucked. Getting the Zojirushi literally changed how we eat -- we used to rarely have rice, but the Zojirushi makes it so much easier to cook and impossible to mess up, so rice became a staple dinner feature.

I don't know how you're managing to do that then. I use this one: https://www.amazon.com/Aroma-Housewares-ARC-914SBD-Cool-Touc...

and make perfect rice every time.

How did your cheap rice cooker sucked? Maybe you bought a "bad" cheap rice cooker :) I've had 5 different rice cookers so far, all different brands (moving countries...) and they never failed. It's a simple product really, people who try to sell you something expensive are mostly selling you fluff.

Have you used any of the better ones in the last 5 years?

Yep, sometimes family members have the latest rice cooker (yup I'm asian) but I'm convinced that I make better rice with my shitty rice cooker.

It's really just about washing the rice (not too much), how much water you pour in (not too much), and how long you let it sit while not touching it when it's cooking.

(Oh and, I used to live in China, ate rice everyday in all kind of restaurants. I know what is good rice.)

Fuzzy logic cookers can deal with other kinds of rice and grains.

Fuzzy logic rice cookers do not burn the bottom and leave a little bit in the middle not quite cooked. This may not be an issue with all cheap rice cookers, but the ones I owned before the Zojirushi left something to be desired even with plain old white rice.

Nice rice cookers have a warming mode that keeps the rice at a nice serving temperature for as long as you need it.

I'm not saying a cheap rice cooker isn't an upgrade over a pot with a lid on the stove...it is. But, a nice fuzzy logic cooker (of which I have only ever used Zojirushi) is better still.

My Zojirushi works fine after more than a decade of use (probably more like 15 years, as it's followed me through multiple houses). I guess it seems pricey compared to a $20 cheap cooker, but amortized over many years of great nearly fully automated rice, I think it's a bargain.

> Fuzzy logic cookers can deal with other kinds of rice and grains.

Like what? That actually seems interesting. Although other kind of grains are usually not that complicated to cook (but I always want my rice perfect).

Now that I think about it, it looks like you can't steam food while you cook rice in this fuzzy logic cookers. I often steam fish, vegetables or even sausages on top of the rice.

> Nice rice cookers have a warming mode that keeps the rice at a nice serving temperature for as long as you need it.

I've never seen a rice cooker without that.

> Fuzzy logic rice cookers do not burn the bottom and leave a little bit in the middle not quite cooked

Never happened to me, a friend had an old rice cooker that did also. But I'm wondering if it's because he scrapped the bottom of it.

> a nice fuzzy logic cooker (of which I have only ever used Zojirushi) is better still

I'm not saying it's not an upgrade (although if you can't steam food at the same time...) but rather that for the price, it's not worth it. The upgrade is negligible.

> My Zojirushi works fine after more than a decade of use

Crazily, cheap rice cookers last forever as well. And these are a real bargain ;)

Maybe the cheap ones have improved since I last used one. I owned about three cheap ones over a span of about eight years before getting the Zojirushi. Two failed, and one I gave away when I got the Zojirushi. In my experience, the quality was just very different.

I used to steam and cook rice on the same pot, but didn't really like the flavors dripping down (broccoli juice is kinda bitter and weird in rice or pasta) so I stopped doing it. But I guess it's a good feature if you like that sort of thing, and it's true the Zojirushi doesn't work for that. It just makes rice and grains (oats, porridge, etc.) really well, consistently.

Put the ingredients in alluminium! Like that no dripping.

I was also going to say a Zojirushi rice cooker. I've had mine for 6 years and it shows no signs of slowing down. Super easy to clean and makes amazing rice every time.

Man, those two things plus my pressure cooker are like my kitchen holy trinity (except for when I'm making cajun food).

It's always right. When I'm cooking a whole meal, I can easily forget about the rice, and end up with burned bottom and mushy top.

It's always perfect. The variability of my stove burners means that my rice on the stove never comes out exactly the same. With a good rice cooker, you never have under or overdone rice.

If you eat rice every couple of months, a rice cooker is pointless. I eat it two or three times a week, and I want it to be good every time and without me having to think about it (because rice is what goes under the food I'm making on the stove, so I'm too busy chopping and cooking to worry about rice).

Interesting, we probably cook it two or three times a week as well, I can only remember one failure.

this and my Zojirushi water heater