rice cooker is a must only if u...

cook lots of rice. I am a Chinese and eat rice almost every meal, every day. Therefore, we have a couple of rice cookers here. the best one you could get are the ones from Japan. My fav is the "elephant brand" (can't recall the name but it has a logo of an elephant on it.) it's more expensive but it does a great job and keep the rice warm but never dry. (some old ones will make the cooked rice dry afterwards.)

But if you still want to cook the rice on the stovetop The old faith method!!!) then pls. have a look at my previous post under "Gohan" or "Cooking rice" (something like that) under "What a Great Idea!" board...

ps: i never cook rice in the microwave so i can't tell you anything about it.

hope this helps.