Do You Need a Fancy Rice Cooker 🤔

This video is sponsored by .

So this is my rice cooker .

I bought it almost 10 years ago for like 20 bucks or something .

Nothing special at all .

Very low tech , but I'm not gonna lie .

It served me really , really well .

But this guy makes damn good rice every single time .

It never failed me .

And considering how cheap these guys are , I think everyone should have a rice cooker like this at home except wait before I make this recommendation .

Final .

There's one very important thing we need to get out of the way .

This is a package I ordered from Japan just a couple of weeks ago and it finally arrived today .

Can you guess what's inside ?

Even though I was always super happy with my trusty old €20 rice cooker .

There's this whole other world out there of kind of fancy kind of high end kind of high tech Japanese rice cookers .

And everyone I know who owns one always says that once you start using those , you will never go back .

Well , fair enough problem is these guys can get pretty damn expensive .

How expensive you might ask ?

Well , this is a Zoi Rushi rice cooker , the gold standard of Japanese rice cookers .

And to get my hands on this guy , I had to dish out a whopping drum roll , please .

€360 .

That makes this 18 times more expensive than my old rice cooker .

18 times .

Can this really be worth the money ?

How good can plain white rice really get ?

I guess there's only one way to find out .

Let's unbox this baby and we'll know , I gotta say you can't not be impressed by this design .

I mean , look at it , look at it .

Oh man .

Let , let me just show you one difference .

Both these rice cookers have to like collect uh condensation water .

This one does it with this thing and this one does it with this valve .

That's what you pay €350 for it or is it ?

But seriously though this kind of looks nice and like look at it .

It's got this like handle .

You can take it on a picnic .

I don't know what this is for .

Obviously , this one has a ton of different functions .

It has like a menu , slow cooking modes , keep warm mode , all this good stuff , but all we need today is a machine to cook rice .

Is that too much to ask before we start though ?

Let me show you one more little detail .

How do you open this rice cooker like this ?

How do you open this rice cooker ?

It's not an essential function , but it does add value to a machine .

It makes it feel sophisticated .

They all come with a spatula .

But this is actually important because this is how you get the rice out of the rice cooker without scratching it up .

If you buy a $350 rice cooker , don't wanna scratch it on the first day .

OK ?

But now let's get down to business and cook some rice .

So this is just some regular ass plain white short grain rice that you could use for sushi , fried rice , whatever I did wash and rinse this rice very thoroughly because that's what you have to do if you want good rice .

And I'm gonna add one of these cups to this rice cooker , my good old buddy and another cup into my new super fancy zhi rice cooker .

You know , now the only other thing that's missing is water .

And if you know anything about cooking rice , you know , the amount of water is pretty crucial for this old rice cooker that I've been using for a long time .

I know that a good ratio is 1 to 1 by volume .

So also one cup of water plus just a little bit , you know , to account for evaporation .

In order to ensure a fair competition , I'm also going to add one cup to this rice cooker plus a little bit .

And by the way , this one has all those markings on the inside of the rice cooker .

So you kind of know how much of rice and water to add for different things .

And if you were to make porridge or conge , it actually tells you like if you want it thicker , do you want it thinner ?

So this is obviously very well thought out , but that's not what matters , what matters is how well they cook rice for my old rice cooker .

All I gotta do is plug in the power cord and then set this button to cook this rice cooker .

On the other hand , is a lot more high end .

You can have this plugged in and not cook rice .

It is indeed possible .

But what you do have to do is press start .

Yeah , that's what you pay big money for .

OK .

I guess both of these are cooking .

We just need to let them do their thing now .

But while they are doing their thing , I just want to take a brief moment to appreciate the magic genius .

That is rice cooker technology you guys ?

And when I just said rice cooker , I actually mean this old school type of rice cooker .

This one , I don't know , military grade A I powered cloud computation or something .

I don't know .

I'm sorry about this one because this one is as simple as it is pure genius .

Let me explain when you cook rice .

There are two things happening .

One by adding water , you make the dry grains of rice , absorb that water and two by heating the water soaked rice , you cook and soften the starches within which do comprise most of that rice .

Now , as you might know with the right amount of water and maybe a lid , you can cook rice in just about any type of pot that is out there .

But a rice cooker has the advantage of knowing when the rice is done cooking and then stopping the cooking process to avoid drying out or even burning the rice so far so good .

But the truly genius part lies in how the rice cooker knows when the rice is done .

You see when you heat water , its temperature will gradually rise until it reaches its boiling point , which is at 100 degrees Celsius , at least at sea level .

But let's keep it simple for now .

And I think not everyone might fully understand this , but at 100 degrees , if you add more energy or heat to the water , it will not get hotter .

It will only evaporate faster .

No matter if it's pure water that you're boiling or if there's rice in that water , it will not go over 100 degrees Celsius .

That's crucial because since we added just the right amount of water to our rice to fully hydrated as soon as that water is all absorbed by the rice .

First of all , we're done cooking .

But also unlike water , rice can actually get hotter than 100 degrees Celsius .

If you're cooking rice in a regular pot .

This is where it would start overheating and eventually burning unless you somehow manage to stop the cooking at this exact precise moment .

Which surprise surprise is exactly what a rice cooker does .

Technically speaking , you could just have a simple thermometer in there to measure the heat and have a very basic processor .

Tell the heating element to stop what it's doing once we reach a temperature of over 100 degrees Celsius .

But rice cookers are even smarter than that or should I say dumber than that ?

Because they found an even simpler solution .

So without getting too technical here , you know how certain materials react to temperature , like they expand when they're hot , hot and they contract and get really small when it's cold .

Any examples you can think of not that one , you not in mind .

So long story short , they just need to switch from a certain type of metal alloy in this rice cooker that springs from one position to the other when it reaches the right temperature and switches your rice cooker from cook mode to warm mode .

And that's it .

It really is that simple .

It's basically a purely mechanical solution , no computation required .

And I just think that deserves a little more appreciation .

I mean , this technology makes billions of people around the world happy every single day .

With that said , our rice cookers are almost done doing their job .

But before we get to the big tasting and see if this guy is actually worth its money .

Let me share a message from one of my favorite channel sponsors and why do I like so so much ?

Because it's a monthly snack box subscription service that delivers original assortments of premium Japanese snacks and tea earrings .

Every month .

You'll receive a box just like this with a different theme shipped straight from Japan just like this rice cooker .

This is my latest box .

So box which you might remember from my last video .

But these are so full with snacks that I still have plenty more .

And the only question is which snack do I pick ?

Next ?

The pressure is on guys .

Which one is it gonna be ?

Let's go for this one .

I'm not actually quite sure what this is , but box always includes this little booklet where you can find information about all these snacks that they're sending you as well as things like common allergens and that kind of stuff .

So very thoughtful , very useful .

It says that this is normally a sweet from the island of Okinawa .

But the maker of this particular snack decided to change things up and make it cheesy .

I am certainly excited about this one .

Oh , smells nice .

Hello , cheesy , spicy friend .

Let's give this a taste .

Hm .

Nice and mild .

But with this delightful little Umami kick .

Oh my God .

This is kind of nice .

The first bite didn't convince me but the more I eat this .

Oh , yeah .

Oh yeah .

Oh , did you wanna try one ?

Yes , exactly .

It's like a peppery cheesy breadstick .

Pretty good .

So if you're anything like me and you love getting a little snack piece of Japanese culture delivered straight to your door , you should definitely check out box soup .

Use my code and 10 and the link in the video to description below to get 10% off your own authentic Japanese snack box subscription from Baku .

Don't miss out on this delicious snack journey through Japan .

Thank you Baku for sponsoring this video .

So according to the display of this rice cooker , it should be done in about one minute .

If anybody recognized that music , please let me know what that was .

I have no clue .

First quick evaluation this rice cooker was done after 23 ish minutes .

This one just played its tune to us and I took the time .

This took almost exactly one full hour .

I'm not quite sure what's happening happening here .

I assume that this rice cooker knows exactly what it's doing and it has some kind of like slow cook mode because it also if you look closely , it does have a quick function .

So I guess it's slow on purpose .

But all I know is that I love rice and it's time to taste some .

OK , let's start with this one .

Smells like rice looks , I don't know what it looks like .

So what I normally do with this rice cooker that I've been using for a decade almost at this point is I usually open it and I let it steam out for just a little bit .

Like you open it , you kind of close it back down , you wait five minutes or something .

And then the rice is kind of , it's ideal state , but that's already a special method which would almost be cheating , you know , and look because I didn't do it .

I feel like it got a little mushy .

Maybe I literally always open it up as soon as it's done cooking and let it steam out .

Now , I didn't do it .

And it's not great .

This was rice number one , not the most exciting thing because the most exciting thing is this , I don't , I don't , I gotta say this rice .

Honestly , it smells better and it's exactly the same rice .

I think you can't deny that .

Just by looking at this rice , it looks a lot more evenly cooked .

Oh My .

Can't complain .

Can't complain .

Even though I use the exact same rice and the exact same proportions .

This rice is clearly less mushy than the other one .

Here .

They are side by side with this rice coming from this rice cooker and this rice coming from that rice cooker .

I mean , the difference is not huge and I'm not even sure if you can tell on camera this one .

Yeah , it's sweater , it's and this one is more even it's kind of drier , even though there was the exact same amount of water .

So something is clearly different and only my mouth can tell us what rice number one , it's rice , it's well cooked .

No big issues .

Some kernels of rice are quite mushy .

Like to the point where they're almost falling apart .

And then other kernels of rice are actually pretty solid and dry .

I and like almost crunchy on the surface .

But if I wasn't like comparing rice cookers right now , I would probably not even really notice .

But now rice number two and tastes exactly the same .

You know , in terms of texture , though , there is a difference .

It's not a huge difference , but there is one , there's definitely a lot less of that mushiness that this rice kind of has a little bit .

And I'd say that like the centers , the core of these rice kernels are almost a little bit , which honestly is kind of surprising considering this one cooked the rice for an hour and this one only for 20 minutes .

But this one , it would just like let it rip until the rice is like cooked through .

And this one is like gently heating the rice , making sure it's absorbing the water properly and that kind of stuff .

Yeah , it's a bit more pleasant to eat .

I need an unbiased opinion .

I love rice .

Did I tell you that super mushy ?

I'm trying to find the single kernels , but I can't .

Now this rice from the very expensive Japanese rice cooker .

There's more , more of a bite to it tastes exactly the same .

I wouldn't pay more money for this .

You know , you can achieve this kind of style with this rice cooker as well .

I'm very sure .

So yeah , there is definitely a difference .

I would say this rice cooker heats the rice a lot more evenly .

You get a more consistent result , especially when you're making a larger amount of rice in this rice cooker .

I guarantee you the bottom layer of rice will be very soggy while the top layer of rice will be a little bit dry .

I don't think that would happen with this rice cooker .

Looking at these results is what I just cooked here .

Is this a night and day difference ?

No , this one a little firmer , a little bit more evenly cooked .

That's it .

So is it worth paying all this money for this one ?

Should you shed out 360 bucks to get a rice cooker like this ?

Honestly , I don't think so .

However , this rice cooker has all these other modes built and like it's a slow cooker , you can make coni you have settings for different types of rice .

Maybe to a certain type of rice power user .

There is some merit in buying this .

But if you're just a casual rice eater , this one will do just fine .

And that's because of the genius technology I explained before .

It's basically foolproof .

So no matter how cheap a rice cooker like this is , unless they totally screwed up in manufacturing , it's gonna get you almost all the way .

I hope this video was educational for you guys .

If you enjoyed it , make sure to like comment and of course , hit that subscribe button .

Thank you guys for watching and I'm gonna see you in the next video after I ate a whole ton of fried rice .