Virtually any model of Zojirushi. It pretty much is the Japanese standard of excellence when it comes to rice cookers.
EDIT: I am specifically referring to their “Micom” cookers. I can’t personally speak to the simpler ones.
Cuckoo. It’s a Korean brand, probably better than the Japanese brands imo. If you have an H-mart near you they’ll have a couple models on the floor you can look at, but I bought mine on amazon. It’s big, fast, can cook all types of rice with special settings, and everything that comes in contact with the rice pot is removable for cleaning. It’s been going strong for about 5 years and I use it at least once a week.
You can also cook anything in there. It comes with a steamer tray too for vegetables or sweet potatoes. Apparently mine can cook a whole chicken but I have yet to try that. Oh and it talks too, plus it makes a cute choo-choo train sound to signal it’ll vent steam in a second.
Married into an Asian family so rice cookers are used all day. We tried a few of the 50 dollar ones. They were OK but the rice tended to overcook and sometimes even burn on the bottom. Then I got my wife a zojirushi neuro fuzzy. I don’t recall any household item that has pleased her more than this cooker in our 22 years together. Perfect rice every time, easy to clean. The only issue we had was the inner lid gasket wore out. But we really do abuse this cooker. It is used so much. Zojirushi customer service shipped us a new inner lid for a reasonable price.
Technology Connections (YouTube channel) did an examination on rice cookers.
Spoiler: you only need one of the cheapest rice cookers out there to make perfect rice every time, so long as you get the water ratio correct.
I just watched the whole thing and he didn’t say a single thing about how to get the water ratio right and I just wasted ten minutes of my life
Look up that ratio. For any given altitude that ratio is going to be the same whether you make your rice in one of these pots, an expensive Zojirushi, or in a plain pot on the stove.
Is that what he meant? So the fact that I live at 800m is what’s fucking up my rice?!?
Yeah, I saw that and followed his advice. My rice is great, but cleaning the cooker is a pain.
doesn’t easily get nasty AF
Background? What the hell are you doing with your rice cooker?!
I have a Japanese zojirushi I bought about 8 years ago. Fuzzy logic, induction, etc. Still going strong and I don’t find it hard to clean. Every one I used (such as my first year in Japan at a sharehouse) worked well and lasted.
