Rating:

I don’t have a huge group to cook for, just our family of four, but I do entertain quite often so I bought this model instead of the smaller 3 cup model just incase I ever needed it.

So far, I’ve made white rice and oatmeal in the rice cooker. Both turned out perfectly! My husband mentioned that this was the best rice he’d ever eaten and kept pointing out how each grain was perfect, not a sticky mess like our usual rice.

For the oatmeal, I used a “recipe” mentioned in another Amazon review (1 rice cooker cup steel cut oats, 2.5 cooker cups water and a dash of salt). I used the timer function on the rice cooker so that it was ready when I woke up in the morning. I’ve had the rice cooker for a week and made the oatmeal three times already! It’s a nice treat. (For the record, my very picky 1 year old loved hers with a little brown sugar and some dried cherries mixed in).

Clean up is a breeze. Both the rice and oatmeal cooked without scorching and the pan cleaned up quickly. Not a speck stuck to the side.

People have complained about having to wipe out the top lid each time you cook. I really don’t understand the complaint. This takes all of 5 seconds and there’s no mess to scrub, just maybe a drip of water.

I am very happy that I finally broke down and shelled out the money for a decent rice cooker. I could have gotten a cheaper one, but would I be enjoying fabulous oatmeal first thing in the morning? No, and I’d probably be replacing it within a year, from what people have told me.

Rating:

The timer feature is great and this model has two! I just put my steel cut oats in and set the timer to have the oatmeal ready for me in the morning. I use the following recipe and oatmeal comes out great each time!

1 Rice Cooker Cup – Steel Cut Oats

2.5 Rice Cooker Cups – Water

Dash of salt

The rice I’ve cooked has come out perfectly every time! In fact, it comes out too perfect depending on how you’re used to your rice. I like my wild rice a little more dry than how this cooker cooked it the first time, but no problem, I just needed to add less water. It still came out moist and tender though and as perfect as you would think.

I’ve also found that you can be imperfect with your water amounts. This cooker seems to adjust for my imperfections and still makes great rice and oatmeal!

Having two timers is pretty handy, but one timer models will be fine for most people. The only advantage to having two timers is that the timer remembers your last time setting so you don’t have input a new time each time. If you always have two set times, changing the times on a single timer model would be a pain.

I’ve noticed that the timer doesn’t seem to remember my cooking method settings. This is odd since it remembers the time just fine. I always have to change my settings to porridge for my oatmeal, even though I’ve always set it to that the time before. This is my one con about this model so far.

The bowl is non-stick and cleans up easily. I’ve had no problem with cleaning the bowl even if I’ve left rice remnants in there all day. The inner lid removes easily and is cleaned easily. It doesn’t get too dirty, but I have noticed that using the Quick Cook method seems to make it a bit dirtier than the normal cooking time.

The included cup is smaller than a standard US Cup, but that’s not a big deal since everything is proportional anyhow. The include spoon is great and easy to clean as well. Nothing seems to stick to!

The handle and retractable cord are also pluses. All in all, a very well designed machine and easy to use. I didn’t have any issues understanding the manual.

This is a great machine and hopefully it will stand up over time!

Rating:

This is my second Zojirushi rice cooker with fuzzy logic. I received the first one as a gift 10 years ago and it still works fine. We got this one, because we wanted a smaller cooker that didn’t take up as much space in our overloaded kitchen. Our old cooker is a 10-cup model and worked flawlessly. The new model is much improved. The retractable cord is an excellent feature and the cooker is easy to program. It is also easy to clean and nonstick. Cooks rice to perfection. Yes, it’s expensive, but it does an excellent job and it’s built to last. We had originally gotten a cheaper brand ($40) to replace our old Zojirushi. Big mistake. It lasted less than a year. Zojirushi is much higher quality and we look forward to another decade or more of regular use. Highest recommendation!!

Update May 2009: Still using this cooker regularly. Does a great job and is holding up well!! No problems.

Rating:

White Rice: Taste and texture-wise, it’s the same as my other rice cookers. But it takes 45min to cook (vs 20min in others). There is a Quick Cook feature, but that is 30min still. There is 1 noticeable difference with the rice, it tastes very good the next day with microwave reheating.

Brown Rice: Texture-wise, there is a huge difference from my other rice cookers. The brown rice is soft and plum, but it takes almost 2hr to cook.

Sponge Cake: The cakes collapsed both times after I opened the lid.

Features I like:

- Retractable power cord

- Non-stick coating bowl

- Music indicator of when it starts and ends

- “Bumpy” spatula and spatula holder on the side

Features I don’t like:

- No condensation collector

- Having to clean inner lid every time

Rating:

I was really torn between this model and Zojirushi’s NS-LAC05 3-Cup model. Most of the time, I will be cooking rice for only 2 people, so the 3-Cup NS-LAC05 seemed ideal. But, on the other hand, I liked the flexibility of getting this bigger 5 1/2-Cup model – e.g., when having company over for dinner, or for cooking “one pot” rice-based dishes – I thought I could use the extra room in both cases. And, this bigger model can make cakes, where as the 3-Cup is too small. The only thing that worried me about getting this bigger model was I wondered if it would cook a small amount (i.e., one “Zojirushi cup”) of plain rice as well as the smaller model – after all, that is what I would be doing most of the time.

Well, the flexibility won out in the end (as well as the surprisingly lower price of the NS-TGC10 on Amazon – $10 cheaper than the smaller NS-LAC05). And my worries about making a small amount of plain rice in the NS-TGC10 turned out to be unfounded as I discovered in my test run.

So, if you are torn between these two Zojirushi models, I recommend this one – $10 cheaper & more flexibilty. Plus, judging from the dimensions of both, it is not much bigger than the NS-LAC05 so it won’t take up significantly more kitchen counter space.