Purchase this rice cooker prior for me. This ones for my daughter and I just love the texture and quality of the rice itself. The rice lasts longer than the other rice cookers.

My Thai wife used to make fun of me because I made rice with a covered pan. For a couple of years she humored me, then told me she wanted me to get a rice cooker. After looking around some, I chose this one, and I have to give it to her, she was absolutely right. It is effortless to make perfect rice every time, once you learn the secret. The secret is to choose the right setting on the machine, and to use less water than you are probably used to. For Thai Jasmine rice, we use 1 measurement of rice to 1.5 measurements of water and use the white setting. (it does not matter if it is a half cup, cup, or one of the rice cookers cups, which is about 3/4 of a cup)

Just for the rice alone, this would be a good purchase, but the truth is, I use it for far more than rice. Being able to wake up to real grits, as opposed to the quick variety, steel cut oatmeal, my wife’s rice porridge, etc. are all easily done with this cooker using the porridge setting. One accessory I would definitely recommend is The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook : 250 No-Fail Recipes for Pilafs, Risottos, Polenta, Chilis, Soups, Porridges, Puddings and More, from Start to Finish in Your Rice Cooker which provides a wide variety of possibilities for this handy time-saver. At the very least, it will give you ideas for how to use the cooker to widen your possibilities in the kitchen, though you may have to experiment a little with some of the recipes.

BTW…another reviewer said it was ‘fussy to clean’. I HATE washing dishes, and I find it easy to clean. Remove the pan, wipe it down, remove the lid and wash with a kitchen sponge, rinse and dry, wipe down the lid of the cooker, and put it back together. All in all, it takes about a minute and a half. Heh, I do not consider that ‘fussy’.

Highly recommended.

Works great for me.I steam vegetables and rice at times. Also I have hard boiled eggs in it.

I use it about 3 times a week. Looks like a million dollars also.Easy clean too.

Got it for $100. Just used it for half a month, and still not quiet familiar with all of its functions.

But it did good job. I am simply satisfied.

The cooker works rather well. I thought because it is so cheap that it might not work well. It does the job and it’s easy clean up because the lid and the rice pan come right off. Some cookers have the lid attached and they are more difficult to clean.

i have owned this since 2001. it gets used at least once a week if not alot more since my wife is japanese. not a problem one. makes perfect rice as easy as decide how many cups rice you want add equal amounts of water and close lid and press start. done

I have had several of the cheaper on/off rice cookers. They worked ok for white rice, but anything else – forget it. Even with white rice, the bottom consistently got crusty and brown. The stay warm features on those types of cookers have a tendency to run too hot, thus scalding the bottom layer.

Now I have a Zojirushi! I rinse some rice in the morning throw it in the Zoji, throw in a little butter and sea salt, set the timer and I am done! Any type of rice! I have cooked Jasmine, Basmati, Brown, Wild, Sticky, and various blends – all of them PERFECT every time.

My mom taught me the secret to better rice is to let it soak (especially sticky) before you cook it. This is made so easy because once you’ve added the rice and set the timer, it soaks all day.

I love that you set the timer for when you want the rice to BE READY, not when you want it to start cooking. That way, I can time the rice perfectly to coincide with dinner – brilliant!

The ONLY CON: Is that the display battery (used to power the clock when the unit is unplugged) is soldered onto the circuit board. So, unless you are a big do-it-yourselfer and want to crack open your Zoji, you will have to send it to a service center for a new battery. I think this is a very unfortunate characteristic. How difficult would it have been to put the battery in a regular compartment on the side or underneath? Such as you see for a radio, alarm clock or toy. The battery would be easily accessable and replacable by the owner. Hence 4 stars, not 5.

NOT all rice cookers are made same. Not even within japanese brands!. This model is made in japan. and the rice comes out PERFECT. TASTY. YUMMY.

just figure out the rice water ratios, according to the rice you select:short/med grain, polished/unpolished, newcrop/oldcrop has different ratios nuiances.

This machine is beautiful and when ur done cooking there is NEVER any residue or nasty clean up. I always had that issue with my sanyo and LG rice cookers~

I thought that was the norm, and i had to live with it. I DONT!

I am very particular about my rice, so i even got into a habit of stove top cooking it. but its work intensive and if u mess up, u mess up the whole batch ;p.

This IH system of cooking rice is incredible. INCREDIBLE! Every grain of rice on the sides or even at the bottom is evenly cooked with whatever is in the middle.

Even though there is 100 $ difference between the non IH model… its worth it if u eat rice everyday,

and im japanese so i DO!. I taste the difference in every bowl of rice, and i’ve had MANY!

I am Japanese/American, and have eaten steamed rice all my life. Have owned a rice cooker almost all of my adult years. This is my second Zojurishi cooker. Owning a Zojurishi is so way worth it. Why? It just plain cooks the rice as well as it can be made. I few years ago, I relocated to a far away local and eventually purchased a run of the mill rice cooker, and never liked it. Finally purchased another Zojurishi and now think I was silly for the time I did not have it. Full features and cooking options are cool too. The only draw back on my current model is that it does not have a run off for excess condensation, like my other one had. This does not affect the quality of my rice, just a noticeable difference. I shopped and Amazon offered an excellent price with free shipping. No brainer.

This is the best rice cooker I have ever had. I have struggled with making ‘good’ brown rice for quite some time and really wanted to make the switch to healthier eating. This rice cooker makes the best brown rice I have ever had. My husband agrees. I got a great cookbook through Amazon (The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook), that offers so many more options for using the cooker, but if all I ever did was make brown rice in this cooker, it’s been worth the cost. You won’t be disappointed with this buy:)