CUCKOO High Pressure Rice Cooker 6-Cup Uncooked 12-Cup Cooked with Induction Heating Technology Versatile Rice Maker with 16

UPDATE: I've had this for half a year now and I still love it. I've almost always got rice cooking or sitting in Keep Warm in the Cuckoo, and I've still had no issues. I love how fast it is with plain sticky rice, and the GABA setting for brown rice makes brown rice that tastes *awesome*. I haven't tried the dough fermenting setting yet, but I think I'm going to this weekend. It's definitely something I'm interested in. At any rate, I wholeheartedly recommend this rice cooker! It's one of the biggest workhorses in my kitchen, and I really don't have any big complaints with it after 6 months. If you're willing to spend a big chunk of cash on a rice cooker, you won't be disappointed with this one! ******* tl;dr: I was torn between this and the Zojirushi induction heating pressure cooker rice cooker, so I bought both. I liked the Cuckoo better! I liked the tactile buttons, low spatial profile, and dimpled scooper with the Zojirushi, but the rice from the Cuckoo cooked faster, came out sweeter and stickier, and the bowl was much higher quality (from my understanding, the Japanese version of the Zojirushi cookers have a similar high-quality bowl, but the American versions use a thinner bowl). The Cuckoo also lets you customise the end-product of your rice a lot more! You can't go wrong with either brand, but the Cuckoo won me over in the end. I don't write reviews very often, but I love this cooker and I wanted to add my two cents about it! I've had a low-end micom Zojirushi (the Zojirushi NS-LAC05XA) for something like four years. Before I bought it, I'd only used the cheap Black & Decker and Aroma rice cookers that burn out after a year, and dry out rice after it's been sitting for a few hours. The micom Zojirushi was an absolutely incredible upgrade! Suddenly, my rice came out evenly cooked, soft, fluffy, and lasted for DAYS on "keep warm", which was amazing since I was living alone and it was annoying cooking small portions of rice at a time. For that record, that Zojirushi is still going strong, and I'm going to be giving it to my parents, who still just use a Black & Decker rice cooker. I still maintain that was probably the best kitchen purchase I ever made as a college student! I just upgraded because I wanted a larger rice cooker, and I was really curious to try out an induction heating and pressure cooker! Anyway. Once I knew I wanted an induction heating rice cooker, I started agonising about which one to get! I'd never heard of Cuckoo before, but it seemed to have a strong following. From what I could tell, they had been in the pressure cooker business for years, whereas Zojirushi was a relative newcomer to that technology. It looked like an all-around fantastic rice cooker (not to mention looking properly futuristic with that white and steel body!) and had some cool modes (like nurungji cooking mode, so I could make proper sungnyung without using a pot!). The equivalent Zojirushi (NP-NVC10) had a similar set of features, though I couldn't find any information comparing the two. I was torn. I'd developed a bit of brand loyalty to Zojirushi from my experience with their rice cooker and thermoses, but the Cuckoo seemed really interesting. What was I supposed to do? I bought them both, of course! So after using the two for a few weeks, here's what I have to say comparing them: CUCKOO PROS: * FAST. Regular white rice cooks in under half an hour (and it even has a TURBO MODE that cooks it even faster, more like 15 minutes!!) whereas the Zojirushi takes over an hour. The rice isn't necessarily better with the Zojirushi, either. It comes down to preference, but it's less sticky, more granular, and the flavour is a little more grainy, but I think it's less sweet. Personally, I prefer the Cuckoo's rice flavour. * STICKY. I like sticky rice, it makes it easier to eat with chopsticks, it's chewier, I just like the texture more. Rice in the cuckoo is a lot stickier and softer. * ADJUSTABLE. Every cooking mode (glutinous rice, sushi rice, GABA brown rice, nurungji, etc) all have the additional "My Mode" customisation that lets you adjust the heated soaking and steaming times to make rice sweeter or softer! This lets you dial in rice to your preferred texture, and it's fantastic. * DURABLE. The Cuckoo's pot is a LOT more heavy duty than the Zojirushi pot, which feels paper thin by comparison. I don't know if that results in better rice, but thicker cast-iron metal would definitely result in more even heat distribution, so I'd assume that would reflect in the rice. As a more damning point, the Japanese version of the Zojirushi model evidently has a much thicker pot. It sounds like this American release may have a thinner pot for more cost-effective manufacturing (and most people probably wouldn't know any different anyway. * INFORMATIVE. The Cuckoo has a really nice touch during the cooking process: it updates when it begins steaming the rice, when it releases the steam, and when rice is complete. The Zojirushi just tells you when the rice is done! * CONSIDERATE. The Cuckoo goes into "Night mode" after 9pm, when the brightness on the screen reduces, and the volume of the voice lowers. That's really nice!! The cable also winds up underneath the body so you don't have excess cable floating around your counter, something the Zojirushi doesn't have. ALSO, the pot has plastic handles, whereas you'd be better off waiting for the Zojirushi pot to cool down before you try and pick it up to clean. Trust me, I've burnt myself. * CLEAN. The Cuckoo has a fantastic option to auto-clean and sterilise itself. I used this when I first got it, and I'll probably be using it once a month to make sure everything is all clean. On top of that, there's a little spill-over reservoir in the back for collecting condensed water that drips down when you open the lid. That's nice! * VERSATILE. Besides being able to happily cook oats (something the Zojirushi's warranty official advises against), it even has an option to act as a regular pressure cooker! Considering an electric pressure cooker is usually at least one or two hundred dollar, this is fantastic. ZOJIRUSHI PROS: * TACTILE. Physical buttons! That's a gimme. Definitely not a dealbreaker, but it makes me happy. * CLEANER. The included rice scoop is SO MUCH BETTER. It has little bumps on the spoon so rice doesn't stick to it. It's way better at non-stick than the Cuckoo's scoop. * EFFICIENT. Extended Keep Warm mode. After 12 hours, the temperature drops so the rice doesn't dry out. You can manually adjust the keep warm temperature on the Cuckoo, and I believe it reduces the temperature overnight, but the manual isn't entirely clear on that. Actually, the Cuckoo's manual isn't that great in general, which leads me to my next point: * LOCALISED. Much proper English manual. The Cuckoo's manual is kinda sloppy Engrish (with some funny things, like one point where it informs you that you can adjust the voice to be "woman, English, or Chinese"), and the recipes in the back are all in Korean =( The Zojirushi's manual is a proper localisation, with English (!) recipes! The recipes seem more westernised though. * STRAIGHTFORWARD. Simpler cleaning. The steam lid has a push-release button, whereas the Cuckoo's lid has to be unscrewed. * ADORABLE. Cuter notifications. When the cooking begins and ends, it plays 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. The Cuckoo just informs you that rice cooking will now begin, and plays drums when steam release starts, and then plays some Cuckoo theme song when the rice is ready. It's kinda weird, but cute too. * MODE-IER. Adjustments to make rice harder/softer/normal (I think this uses variable pressure settings). I wish the Cuckoo had this! Other modes include rinse-free rice, steam-reduce rice, and umami mode -- but in my comparisons, bumping up the soak time to level 3 in My Mode seems to be the same as Umami Mode! * SMALLER. Lower profile body, easier for storage Overall, the Cuckoo definitely suits my needs more, by far. When you get right down to it, I like the way the rice tastes more, I like all the possible adjustments, I like the higher-level visibility of cooking progress, and I LOVE how much faster it is. The Zojirushi has lots of nice little touches, that make it a better operational experience, but the Cuckoo definitely seems like the superiour rice cooker. Hands-down, between the two I'd recommend Cuckoo every time! ...I'm going to miss hearing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, though =( Read more

I cannot live without this rice cooker. This is the Bentley of rice cookers. I have owned several rice cookers in the past and this is by far the cleanest, smartest, friendliest rice cooker I have ever owned. The biggest problem with the rice cookers in the past was that it was hard to clean and maintain. This rice cooker is made of stainless steal and to clean the parts is very simple. My rice comes out perfect every time and keeps VERY well for over 3 days! Even after three days the rice tastes and feels like it was freshly made. Yes, it is expensive but it is worth every penny if rice is a regular part of your diet. Read more

it was a good product until after a few months it started making weird noises while cooking. Right when i put the rice in. it also started telling me the rice was ready when its not and started releasing pressure. the finish sound effect also started to cut in and out. overall very disappointed with this $500 purchase. Read more

Great product but if you're planning to pressure cook stew or steam dumplings, get a bigger one. The inner pot is too small to handle more pieces. If not, a cheaper alternative may be better than this one. Read more

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I love my rice cooker. It looks amazing. Everyone has commented on how expensive it is, but it's well worth the price. I haven't tried cooking anything on here besides rice. I love congee and sadly, this rice cooker doesn't cook congee correctly. There is a porridge button specifically for congee but when the rice was done, it was just super soft and fluffy. I like my congee to have a more watery consistency and with the extra water I added to the pot before cooking, it still doesn't work. I still use the porridge button because when my mother cooks congee, sometimes she makes it watery and sometimes she doesn't, so I've had both ways. When you first start the rice cooker, it is in Korean but you can change the setting to English. It has a built in battery for emergencies like a power outage or if you accidentally unplug the machine while it's cooking, it will resume its cooking when it's plugged back in. I usually keep my rice cooker unplugged and each time I plug it back in, the English setting is still there. Make sure to check out where the rice cooker is made from because I've noticed the cheaper Zojirushi/Tiger brand is made from China. I was told by my mother to never buy a rice cooker that is made from China because they break down faster than the original one. Well if I'm going to spend over $100 on my rice cooker, I might want to make sure it last for a long time. Read more

Only used for 1 year and one small plastic part fell off from the back of the lids, there’s rice water leaking on the bottom of the cooker every time during cooking now. The quality should be better with this price! Read more

I bought first a top of the line japanese rice cooker but was not happy with the quality of the item and taste of the brown rice result. so we look around and came across with this new korean rice cooker and it is an amazing product. looks so elegant and yields very good quality result when cooking rice. we first tries gaba brown rice and I was very pleased with the taste. this is the kind of rice cooker you need if you are looking for the best. it is really amazing. i recommend the 10 cups size if you would like to use it for cooking other than rice. Read more