- Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome back to Kitchen Gadgets.
If you noticed something different,
it's a friend.
I have them.
Esther Choi, right here.
- What's up, Cliff? - What's up?
Esther is also the chef/owner of Mokbar
here in New York City and Ms. Yoo.
What are we testing today, Esther?
Here we go.
(Esther sighing)
- We're testing the rice cooker, of course.
- You do cook rice in your restaurant.
- I do cook rice in my restaurant,
and of course, at home every single day,
but it's also like,
when you guys were like,
"Hey, you're gonna test the rice cooker,"
I'm like, "Of course I am, of course."
- Yeah, well, I mean,
it's better you.
- Hey, I'll be that token Asian.
- You know.
- You know, I'm down with that.
- Speaking of token,
we are testing two rice cookers.
This one is from my house.
It's the one I've had for 10 years.
You make recognize it from certain college dorm rooms.
- That's ridiculous.
I used to have that in college.
- It's the Aroma Rice Cooker.
It's around $40, $50.
And we are testing it against
the Ferrari of rice cookers,
with a price point of around $350.
- Yes.
Looks like this one has white rice, umami.
- That's a setting?
- Yes, that's a setting.
- Quick, which probably means quick cook.
- Yeah.
- Brown rice, gaba brown rice.
You can even pick the levels
of how you want your rice texture to be.
- So I actually don't think
that there is going to be enough of a difference
to justify the crazy price point.
Listen, this thing has a million functions.
This has one.
There's one switch on it that says go.
- Yeah.
- So, we're gonna test it at its most basic function.
- Mm-hmm.
- So we have two cups, one part water
versus one part rice.
I rinsed it three times each til it ran clear.
- So --
- You gave me a look.
- Yeah, I gave you a look,
because three times is not enough, Cliff.
My mom told me the more you rinse it,
the more purified you will be eating rice.
- Oh!
I was doing, I have this certain hand movement.
- Okay, you did the hand movement.
- Yeah, yeah.
- 'Cause that's really important.
- Straight up.
All right, let's put this in.
The rice is going in.
- The rice is in.
- And two cups of water,
we're gonna hit start.
One, two, three.
(devices beeping)
- And I love that this sings to you.
- It does have a timer,
55 minutes going here.
This does not have a timer.
How you know it's done
is in the other room,
you hear something that goes click!
(laughing)
- My opinion is why this is so worth it,
if you mess up your ratio,
it's okay.
It's very forgiving.
The second thing is that you have all these options, right?
Third thing is, make it 10 days
before you're actually gonna eat it.
- Wait, wait, wait, explain that.
- Because it keeps warm.
Right after it cooks,
it'll change the setting to warm,
and it'll just keep in here for days and days,
until the rice goes bad.
This particular rice being Japanese or Korean rice,
it should be slightly sticky,
but still beautifully pearly.
- Yeah, so consistency.
- Consistency throughout the entire thing.
- Like top to bottom.
Here's a little aside.
Ian here, from Ohio.
Your roommate --
- Yeah.
- Has that guy.
How often does your roommate use his rice cooker?
- He probably used it once, but I understand.
- What's his name?
- His name's Brady.
- Brady.
- [Esther] Bad Brady!
- #BradyPleaseUseYourRiceCooker
- Sorry, Brady.
- What happened?
- I don't know what happened.
See?
Now it's pressure.
- [Cliff] It's pressurizing.
It sensed the moisture.
- It sensed that it needs a little bit more water in there,
so they're pressuring it now.
So this one, it's just like steaming out,
so I don't know how that's gonna cook.
- In --
(device clicking)
Oh!
But as anyone knows who has one of these things,
that first click.
- It doesn't mean that it's,
- It doesn't mean anything.
You gotta let it hang out for another 10.
- Yeah.
See, if someone bought that,
how would they know that the rice,
like they just heard the click,
so they're like, okay, it's ready!
- I have a feeling that no one just buys this one blind.
Like, they already know.
- So, Cliff, this side is steam.
- Oh.
I don't know what that means.
- So it means that they're letting out
some of the steam,
but it's still on pressure,
so it's still pressuring,
but they're letting some of the moisture out.
- The big thing with a lot of these products
is the cleanup.
- This one, honestly?
- Has the sticky layer on the bottom.
- Yeah, it has the sticky layer on the bottom,
which is a freaking pain in the ass
to like, yeah.
- You throw it in the sink,
let it soak for like a minute, and yeah.
- Uh-huh.
You have to like scrub it,
whereas this one,
it's like the nonstick, literally.
You don't even have to wash it.
'Cause it's that clean and perfectly.
(device playing a tune)
It sings to you.
That's lovely.
♪ Rice is ready. ♪
- It gets you like excited,
it's like, oh my God, my rice is done.
- For the grand reveal,
let's open it up,
and see.
- I mean, that's looking pretty good.
- I mean, it's sick.
- [Cliff] Oh, no stick on the bottom.
Each grain is very individual.
- [Esther] None of the grains break.
- You ready for this guy?
I mean, look, hey, hey.
- I mean, it's not terrible.
- [Cliff] Oh, oh!
- [Esther] It didn't, oh, but it's mushy.
- [Cliff] So here we go.
- It's mushy.
That's very mush.
And look.
It's gorged here.
So it's uneven.
If we're talking about perfection right now.
- We are talking about perfection.
I'm just --
- I see brown parts in there.
Like this part is obviously a little bit harder
than this part, right?
- This guy's a little whiter,
it's more full.
We have some that are not as full.
Here, they all are really even.
- Mm-hmm.
- [Cliff] Let's taste this one first.
- [Esther] Okay.
- It's a little mushy.
- It's uneven, straight up.
If someone brought that to me,
I would be like, bad rice.
Bad rice.
- Oh, god, even the texture coming out,
it's already different.
- I mean,
that's, yeah.
You can't,
it's so different.
- I know that some of you are sitting at home,
and being like, what the (beep)
That's rice.
But for someone who actually does a lot of rice dishes,
and really cares about this thing,
and someone who eats rice on a regular basis,
this is a noticeable difference.
- Yeah.
It's kind of like that low and slow thing.
Yes, this took maybe almost double the time,
but there's a reason for that,
and sometimes you have to be a little bit patient
for perfection.
- I thought this had a chance,
because I guess you learn to cope with
the inconsistencies for so long.
This is like that old pickup truck
that you know you have to like kick three times,
and then you have to move the stick shift left and right.
We do understand that Zojirushi does make better rice
than Old Blue, the Aroma,
but does it make the $300 investment on top of this?
- I would say if you're cooking rice
at least twice a week, mm-hmm.
- 'Cause then you span that out
over the course of a few years,
and you're just getting --
- [Esther] Yeah, exactly.
- So I guess basically,
if you ever had a conversation
to talk about the consistency of rice,
that's your guy.
- Right.
- But maybe if you're Brady from Ohio,
who's Ian's roommate,
who buys the expensive one
but never makes rice,
maybe he burned the shit out of this one.
Verdict?
Zojirushi is the winner.
Esther, thank you.
- Thank you.
- If you wanna see the food that Esther cooks, click here.
- It's weird.
I feel like it's my duty to my country,
and to my culture to sort of be that person,
to take it the next.