There is a costly choice for your cooking needs - it’s called as the ’AMC Cookware’ (German technology) and is made of ’surgical grade steel’.
Costs: It costs about Rs 34000/- - 35000/- for a standard set of 3-4 cooking vessels! Quite a lot for a set of cooking vessels, you’d say. Ofcourse, there are benefits that come your way when you pay such money; you end up making healthier food and it also saves some cooking gas over a period of time (My estimate says that it’ll take about 8-10 years to get your money back on the vessels, while the salesman says that it takes 5 years).
Let me come to the ’value for money’ point straight-away...
Advantages of the Cookware:
Gives you healthier food (fresher food).
Reduced cooking time (not on all dishes, but if you’re a good cook, with experience you’ll learn how it saves time) -- don’t take the salesman’ or the demonstrators’ word though! For basic daily cooking, it does save time -- no doubt about that.
It saves on cooking GAS -- not as much as the salesman says (I’m using it and it saves me about 10-15% a cylinder, on average).
More useful for non-vegetarians (for cooking non-veg dishes).
Dis-advantages of the Cookware (and the dealers in Bangalore!):
Cannot cook all dishes -- e.g., dosas, pizzas don’t turn up well at all (give the fact that I’m quite a good cook) -- and the salesman promises that it does confidently! For vegetarians, deep thinking is neccessary. So, be careful and don’t rush through your decision to buy it (take 2-3 weeks to decide after doing your homework thoroughly). The sales folks in Bangalore for AMC are quite pushy and can be uncomfortable.
After sales-service is below average -- the representatives at the AMC office in Bangalore are not the friendliest (be prepared for strong snubs) and customer-service is not ’first’ on their agenda.
You need to be an expert cook (not just average) and should very precisely know the quantity aspects of cooking food (you should know things such as the exact amount of heat that needs to be controlled to cook food ’just right’ etc...).
The AMC maketing team will show-case their better products (the cost effective ones) only in the end and show you their ’basic’ products ’only’ at first. So, beware...
Other tips:
Compare it with a microware and ask detailed questions to convince yourself that it’s the right choice and that YOU will find it useful.
Go for 3-4 demos (they will give it to you before the deal is done, because it costs a fortune in INDIA; after that, there is no visit at all). Be completely sure that it can cook all Indian dishes (particularly if you’re a vegetarian).
They don’t have a buy-back policy. So, be absolutely sure of the terms of warranty.
Hope that helps. Im summary, probe deep, get all your questions answered, don’t make a quick decision just because the sales guy is rushing you through it and do your homework!