Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

No need to prick the egg? Try again. All egg steamers on the market either "require" (how are they going to force us, stomp into our kitchens and scowl?) or "suggest" that we prick each egg with a needle prior to cooking to avoid explosion, all units except for the Chef's Choice Egg Cooker. This unit is marketed with the claim that you should prick or pierce the egg and I decided to test that claim for this and two other machines. I purchased the Chef's Choice Egg Cooker and compared it to the machines of two friends. One bought the Dash-Go (she paid $20) and one has the $60 Cuisinart. Basically, they are all exactly the same, operating on the same principle of filling a base with water and steaming the eggs in order to cook them. Where the difference lies is in the controls and in the "prettiness" of the counter-space sapping device. While the Cuisinart could do more eggs at once, it didn't cook them as well when we did more so we found that six or seven was as many as we would do in that machine so we were back to each machine cooking the same number of eggs and, once again, that issue of pricking the eggs was our greatest concern. And so we tested, six eggs in each, several times. We tried a batch of unpricked in each machine and one or two cracked and cooked outside the shell in each unit.for each of two tests. We then pricked the eggs, using a sewing needle (because the little needle cups they send out with some units get lost so easily that they may as well not even send them) and, low and behold, all batches in each machine came out perfect, that is to say, un-cracked and cooked identically. While on the Cuisinart the flaw was evenness when doing more eggs, with the Chef's Choice, the flaw was the control lever. The instructions on the side of the unit, the timing and selection on that control lever, seemed more of a suggestion than actual instruction. The eggs never seem to come out exactly as the label would suggest and, at least on the machine we tested, the unit had to be set higher in order to cook to the lower level. The Dash-Go was simple and easy to use, cheap in appearance and price, and did the job equally as well. I won't tell you not to get the Chef's Choice or the Cuisinart, if you are in love with the visual design of one or the other (as how a thing looks on your counter can often ruin your day, if it is cheap or the wrong color). However, if you are not desperate to have the exact stainless look of the Chef's choice or the tall egg shape of the Cuisinart sitting on your counter, I strongly suggest that you consider other cheap models first, starting with the Dash Go. The stainless is just a waste of money if you are purchasing it for anything other than appearance. As to the one distinguishing characteristic of the Dash Go that makes it the best, in my opinion, the handle on the Chef's Choice unit is only on one side which can (and does) lead to attempts at lifting followed by immediate dropping. The handles, that's right, there are two, on the Cuisinart, are positioned too close to the base of the lid which leads to steaming of your hands as you open the unit. I found this uncomfortable. The handle. and we're back to one, on the Dash Go is a knob on the top of the dome. All you have to do is lift it off and the handle you are using to do that lifting is as far away from the outflow of steam (coming out from around the rim when you open the unit) as it can possibly be on one of these units. You could even tie a string around it if you wanted and lift it off from even farther away, as it is a shaped knob with a thinner portion below a larger, door-knob portion, allowing for a string if a string be what you need. I found that the knob on the top was adequate to protect my hands from the steam, all by itself. Also, as with all units you should use distilled water, as the bases, like a tea kettle, will become covered in calcium within a few months which is very, very, un-pretty.