<p>I have several rice cookers and my close to 90 year old Japanese mother can tell which one I use as well as if I let the rice rest, and if I cheated in any way. Believe me, I have tried. </p>
<p>The cheapo small Japanese cooker with just the on/off setting does the best job, better than the top of the line gadget for small amounts of rice. That makes sense to me as, my big rice cooker can cook a lot of rice and to use it for a cup of rice–it barely covers the bottom of the pot. At the 2 cup mark, it’s a toss up and the little guy actually makes the rice quicker. Beyond that I go to the Big Mama cooker, even though I can cook up to three cups in the smaller one. The taste is better according to my mother, and the bottom gets very slightly scorched in the smaller cooker after two cups in there. </p>
<p>My brother bought a non Japanese cooker that was very expensive, and I ended up giving it away as my mother did not like the rice cooked in it. He still is upset about that, but yes, she could tell the difference. </p>
<p>If you can get even enough heat and not scorch the pan and have to deal with scouring it, go right on ahead and use the stove top method. The little cheapie rice cooker is, IMO, an excellent investment, in that you can just forget about rice, oatmeal, a lot of thing when using it without having a nasty mess to scrub. </p>
<p>I clearly do not have refined taste buds like my mother. I find that the boil in bag rice is just fine for me. No mess, quick, texture is what I find works well. But it’s more expensive than using the cheap rice and a rice cooker which is how I fed my family for years until my mother came to live with us, and refused to eat the Costco big bags of rice, or any, for that matter that she didn’t list. There is rice in season, by the way, and for rice connoiseurs like my mother, that comes into play too, as she wants the "fresh’ rice. Yeah…, well I don’t taste the difference and one has to adjust water and soak time according to whether it is “new” rice or not. And the Japanese at the store where we shop know all about this. </p>
<p>Where I live, there is only one Japanese restaurant with a Japanese chef who prepares the traditional Japanese meals, and that is the only place my mother will eat Japanese food. Woe to any who take her to a place with a non Japanese chef. She catches them every time. Having grown up in a fish store and having to handle the fish, there is little at the sushi bar that gets past her too, and she often waves her hand in front of her nose in front of many sushi bars, not reassuring to my DH who thought they were just fine. Many a time in NYC, they have gone back to get special stash for her that she personally inspects before okaying it while most everyone else gets the fish in the case. </p>
<p>And the rice had better be perfect. If it’s a Japanese owner of a place, it’s on the house, when my mother points out the problems. They bow and scuttle. They also will demur when she asks if the uni is fresh many times and suggest she order some other fare and invite her to inspect the cuts of fish. </p>
<p>As I write this, I am taking her for lunch to our local Japanese restaurant and am hoping that all is up to standard for this meal as she is very picky. In her day, she was one of the best chefs in Japanese cuisine and cutting fish and veggies that I’ve ever seen. She did catering work on a favor basis for some major Japanese companies for a while as she was far better than many of the younger sushi chefs doing the work, and they did acquiesce to her when she did her thing. </p>