i don't know if you saw the video I made about  this Densha de Go! plug and play games console  

but it must have got some people thinking about  things you can import from Japan and in the  

comments under that one chap suggested  to me that I should take a look at the  

Balmuda toaster so it should come as absolutely no  surprise that that is what this video is about now  

at the time of making the video Balmuda who are  a Japanese company don't sell this in the uk so  

mine was imported from South Korea the reason for  choosing a south Korean version over any other is  

because their power supply is 220 volts and here  in the uk it's 230 volts give or take so that  

means I've got no problem using it here because  there's always a bit of leeway in these things  

and since South Korea use a type F plug I can just  plug it into an appropriate adapter so now let me  

show you what separates this Balmuda toaster  out from your conventional toaster oven it's  

this inlet on the top into which you pour five  cc's of water from the tiny cup that's provided  

the water travels down a pipe inside the machine  and comes to rest in the boiler unit at the bottom  

the idea being that the water turns to steam at  the start of the cooking cycle which infuses the  

bread and in theory I'm quoting here recreates  the flavour of bread fresh from the baker's oven  

apparently this layer of steam envelops the bread  lightly toasting its surface while keeping its  

inner moisture and flavour from escaping so you'll  be able to see this process happening on screen  

now I've sped the footage up considerably in order  to better show the whole cooking cycle now each of  

those yellow lights you see flashing at the bottom  right they represent a minute in theory though  

once the toast is ready rather than it being dried  out it should have a soft fluffy interior and a  

nicely toasted exterior apparently this process  also helps somewhat to revive bread that's a  

couple of days old now I feel that this one could  have been toasted a little bit more evenly on the  

bottom but there you go putting its headline  party piece to one side for a moment I'll just  

cover off the rest it's got a nice clean layout  there are a number of colours available this grey  

was apparently a limited edition along the bottom  at the front on the right you'll find the combined  

timer and on off dial whilst the seven position  cooking mode selector is on the left of course the  

documentation with mine was Korean and you can see  from the pictures though that it recommends using  

thick bread for the best results and on this page  you can see suggestions as to which cooking mode  

to use for various types of bread and pastries the  top right one is really the cheese on toast mode  

now while the Balmuda toaster isn't sold in the  uk it has made its way officially to the us and  

that gave me the opportunity to download the us  instruction manual and there are a couple of small  

differences between the model sold over there and  the one in south Korea notice how a couple of the  

toasting modes have been rearranged at number  three on the us model there's a mode for pizza  

however when you read the details of this it  mentions it's also the same mode for toast with  

toppings so really it is just my cheese  on toast mode but with a different symbol  

since heating up pizza slices must be considered  to be an essential feature in models sold in the  

us the toaster that sold there comes with a baking  pan to put them in mine wasn't supplied with one  

but I found a suitably sized one online on my  toaster the timer also functions as the on off  

switch when it's rotated on the us version  the on off switch is a separate push button  

in the middle but as far as I can tell those are  the only differences effectively this is the same  

device that's sold in japan and the us so it's  good that I was able to get hold of an English  

language version of the instructions to help me  get the most out of it without having to resort to  

using the google translate app but other than the  steam function it really is just quite a simple  

device I mean there's one element at the top in  the centre another one in the bottom but you might  

have noticed that it uses these in a slightly  unusual way turning them on and off during  

toasting alternating between the two many times  as well as having moments when neither is lit and  

it's only really when it comes to the very end of  the cycle that they both briefly activate together  

with full intensity to finish off the browning you  can see how this process works from this image the  

x-axis represents time going from the left to the  right so if we look along the bottom you can see  

that it starts off with steam cooking and then  moves into toasting but just above this they show  

which elements are switched on and off during the  process and you can see how it only reaches the  

traditional toasting section right at the end of  the cycle so if you're looking through that window  

at your bread it only really changes colour in  the final minute or so now whilst you see I've  

taken the toaster out of my kitchen to shoot this  video for the last few weeks it has been in there  

and I've used it every day to toast cook and  heat various types and thicknesses of bread  

and pastries amongst other things and I think I've  used it long enough now to form a proper opinion  

about how well it works and whether or not this  steam technology has made a significant difference  

over a conventional toaster oven for me now to  explain how I feel about this I want to tell you a  

bit of a story although I get a lot of complaints  about talking too much in these videos if you're  

one of those people that's in a mad hurry well  down at the bottom you can change the speed to  

two times play if you're on a touchscreen device  you can double tap on the right hand side of the  

screen to skip forward if you're on a keyboard you  can press L to jump forward 10 seconds so all the  

controls are at the user's end I'm going to take  as long as I feel like and this is the story I  

get my hair cut wait for it in the back garden  with the misses cutting them with some clippers  

when you've got hair like this it's not  worth spending any effort over it so she just  

takes the hair off when it gets too long  takes all of five to ten minutes or something  

now there was one occasion where I had to go on  holiday the next day and the clippers broke and  

in a rush at lunchtime at work I went off to the  local barbers and I just wanted my hair cutting  

shorter for you know this two-week holiday and I  walked in and I saw the prices on the wall and I  

was like you know because I hadn't paid for it for  years and this was one of those ones that thought  

they were a little bit special I think you know  they thought they were like some super duper cool  

barber so I'm like but I'm already in the place  so I think oh right I'll get it done the guy says  

have you got an appointment you know again trying  to pretend it's all brilliant and the place was  

empty I said no I haven't he said oh I can just  fit you in you know one of those kind of places oh  

show anyway so I sat down and it took forever this  guy's cocking about with my hair he's got these  

scissors like this and he's doing this behind the  head not even touching the hair I mean it was like  

this kind of length not even going anywhere near  it it's got the comb in one and scissors and it's  

like Edward Scissorhands [ __ ] about round the  back of my hair eventually towards the end of it  

he cuts it with some clippers just like the missus  would have done and charges me goodness knows what  

it was but it was quite expensive and you know  what it looked exactly the same as when the  

misses cut it in five minutes in the back garden  right that's how I feel about this there's a lot  

of fannying about you're sticking water in it it's  lighting all the things at different speeds going  

through this whole choreographed routine and  it's expensive and at the end of it what comes  

out toast toast that seems pretty much the same  as toast that are made in any other toaster in  

my life so yeah that's how I feel about this a lot  of palaver and at the end of it you just get toast  

a little piece of toast now of course I'm only  able to comment on the the texture although  

that is pretty much what this thing's all about  after all if you get bread and you char it it's  

not going to taste any different in this than it  would in anything else however I've mentioned the  

thing about loss of taste before no it's not covid  no I'm not going to go into it all again but if  

you've been here a long time you know the very  first successful video I ever made was about a  

toaster that was back in 2007 so here we are again  but anyway so since I can't really taste it of  

course I run it by the misses so what do you think  of this does this toast taste any better is it  

any different to any other toast you've had and  she's like no it's pretty much like normal toast  

she didn't notice any difference either now  bear in mind I've been using this thing for  

weeks now every day putting all sorts of different  kinds of breads into it I haven't used any of the  

the oven part of it because the oven part is  just like an oven you don't even put water  

in for that it's just like a normal little oven  I've got an oven in the house I wouldn't need to  

use this but you can imagine it'd heat stuff up  that you put in it that's by the buy the reason  

that people get one of these is for this amazing  better quality toast that it's supposed to make  

than any other devices in fact if you look at  their website there's loads of enticing pictures  

of different kinds of foods that have been cooked  in this and it all looks very appetising in  

fact they've done a great job with the website  beautiful pictures recipes from renowned chefs  

really draws you into it gets you quite invested  in the product you think oh yeah I want one of  

these but when you start to look at it a little  bit deeper you realise that a lot of that stuff is  

not quite what it seems let me explain here's  a recipe I spotted on their Korean website this  

looks appetising I pictured it would just involve  putting a few things into the toaster by the time  

you make your morning cup of coffee this breakfast  will be ready courtesy of the Balmuda however once  

you turn on the translator it all turns out to be  far more down to earth the instructions tell you  

to cook the bacon and egg in a frying pan whilst  you're toasting a slice of bread in the toaster  

at the end you butter the toast and you put your  fried bacon and egg on the top I should really  

write that recipe down just in case I forget it  I mean it's a similar deal with this one cook  

some stuff in a pan and at the end of it pop it  on top of some toast so of course you could use  

any toaster to make these recipes there's  nothing clever going on here the truth of the  

matter is that you don't really want to cook  anything in this Balmuda toaster that could  

drip down onto that heating element I'm sure  it wouldn't break it but you don't really want  

to be burning a load of egg yolk on it either  so when it all boils down to it pun intended  

this cooks the same things you can in any  normal toaster oven no more and no less  

and that leads me on to talking about a few things  that I do and don't like about this toaster oven  

sounds a little bit like Car Wow perhaps I should  be poking it with a stick here's five things  

I don't like about this toaster oven I don't  know if there are five but anyway let's start  

off with number one it's slow the steam and toast  process means that it takes longer than any normal  

toaster I've used before on the top of the case  it suggests that toast should take between two  

and a half and three and a half minutes so let's  give that a go here's a piece of bread thickly  

cut as suggested in the instructions and it also  states that you should place it with the rounded  

edge facing the front I'm not kidding right so  I'm adding the water but I know from toasting a  

piece of this same bread earlier on that three  and a half minutes was way too short so let's  

try five minutes this time but fast forward five  minutes and you can see that this still needed a  

little bit longer and helpfully that brings me on  to the next issue with a normal toaster if your  

bread needs a little bit longer you just pop it  in again but with this device due to its cooking  

cycle system that starts with steam and then  has a few minutes of toast disco followed by the  

toasting section at the end that's the bit we need  well we can't just start all over again instead  

if your toast needs a bit more browning it's a  matter of turning the dial to the hottest oven  

mode and then cooking it that way for a couple of  minutes this is how the manual tells you to do it  

so in my case a couple more minutes in the other  mode and well it's still not perfectly browned  

and it's also a little bit hard now as well so  it's a matter of learning and then remembering  

how much time you need for each type of bread and  bear in mind the thickness of the slice at the age  

of the bread will also impact on those times and  that brings me on to the next point there's no  

frozen bread mode now the answer seems to be to  increase the time but you'd think with all that  

carefully managed second by second temperature  regulation that surely frozen bread should be  

treated differently to fresh bread but hey what  do I know I'm no bread scientist next in my  

experience it's a bit of a messy beggar it always  seems to be leaving crumbs on the counter they  

seem to have a habit of blowing out of the device  when you close or open the door of course there  

is the usual crumb tray in the bottom but I've  noticed that crumbs also have a habit of getting  

caught in a little channel just inside the door  now I don't know if that's designed as some kind  

of crumb trap but if it is they could have made  emptying it a bit easier you have to unclip the  

shelf and then the crumbs can't be brushed  out with a finger you've got to vacuum them  

another issue that's caused by the steam mechanism  is that after cooking something you have to wait  

for the whole thing to cool down before you can  toast something else if you don't wait the pipes  

and the boiler tray are going to be so hot that  any water poured into the top immediately boils  

away into nothing before you've even started oh  and don't lose that cup I mean you could replace  

it with something else if you do but remember  whenever you want to toast some bread you're  

going to have to use the cup of water as well your  toaster now comes in two parts and one more thing  

the cooking mode selector on the left is a  little bit hard to read from a normal distance  

especially at an angle it would be nice if this  also had LEDs to show the currently selected  

option moving on to the positives though I  do like the clicky sound that the timer makes

now you should take this review in context  it's just the opinion of one chap who's  

bought this and he's got no sense of taste and  his misses isn't some massive toast aficionado  

the toast that comes out of this seems just fine  I've got no complaints there it's just I didn't  

notice a significant difference over any other  toast I've had and therefore the extra time and  

effort required in making that toast didn't seem  to be worthwhile for me I feel that perhaps the  

marketing height was so great that the product  could never live up to it I was expecting some  

kind of toast revelation a life-changing  toast-based experience but in reality  

of course there's only so much difference you can  make between one piece of toast and another I do  

like the fact that toaster is neat and stylish  as well as available in a number of interesting  

colours and it also seems well put together and  when you consider that this is a product that was  

intended for the Japanese market that then became  so in demand that it's now sold in other countries  

there must be plenty of people out there who  experience something special in the results  

that unfortunately has passed me by and the misses  as well but we all know that food is subjective we  

don't all appreciate exactly the same things in  the same way and that's one of the things that  

keeps life interesting after all someone's keeping  that tripe stall at the local market in business  

and that is definitely not me anyway that's it  for the moment as always thanks for watching