Cooktop/oven Recommendations

[fremmel]

I hope this is the appropriate forum since a lot of you seem to like to cook. I'm in the market for a built in cooktop and an electric oven for our new house. I think I'd like a cooktop with 3 gas burners and one electric. But I'm not too familiar with the brands available from HomePro, Global, etc. here in Udon. The SMEG, Mex, and Elba look like reasonable quality for the price. Does anyone have any recommendations as to which is better or which to avoid? Or do they all cook and last about the same?

[guava]

Personally, I'd like a cooktop with at least 2 induction hobs, and at least 1 gas hob as well (big enough to take a reasonable size wok). Gas always a pain in apartments though. With decent cookware, induction rocks. As for the oven, probably slight preference for electric over gas, but only as you'd be relying on cyclinder gas.

Most recognized European/imported brands are good kit. I wouldn't be in a hurry to recommend Teka - bad experiences. If you go with Smeg, be prepared for possible "smeg on your hood" jokes etc.

Lots of wheeling and dealing can be done, especially if you need oven, cooktop, rangehood, microwave, fridge etc.

I'd check out what is available etc, then google some reviews from sites like epinions etc.

[popshirt]

I am totally sold on the induction units, even the portable ones (which are the same and work just as well as the "drop-in" units).

I never even saw one until I came to Thailand and then was given one, tried it out and have been a convert ever since. We now have 3 of them.

The instantaneous response and the cooler kitchen are just two positives I could mention.

[fremmel]

Thanks for the input. I didn't think about posting here until late in the process and time was short so I ended up going ahead with an order. epinions and other places I found on Google didn't have much and the SMEG looked pretty good so I decided to go with them for the cooktop and convection oven. There was an in-store promotion to go along with the standard catalog promotion and we ordered our cabinets at the same time so got them to knock down the price some. Yeah, I wasn't happy with the name "SMEG" but what can you do.

After reading some of the comments in this forum I did think about induction units but the prices were substantially higher and I didn't see any that included gas - which I wanted for things like woks. But I will check out a portable unit.

[guava]

Mixed induction/gas cooktops probably hard to come by - haven't seen one apart from on the internet. eg Dietrich

But easy enough to mount 2 smaller cooktop/modules side-by-side, which I have seen done in various combinations. I've also seen induction hub designed to take a wok, which may eliminate the need for gas completely (for all but the purists anyway). eg Gaggenau

Another great advantage of induction cooktops is they are so easy to clean - flat surface, plus spilled food/liquid is so much less likely to be heat fused to the cooktop, as the heat is more in the cookware than in the hob/cooktop surface.

SMEG is good quality gear, and recognised as such. It would be someone pretty juvenile to make a crass joke about it. I probably would though I also like dutch oven jokes.

At the end of the day, I really wonder if I would cook more, if I had the ultimate dream setup (especially for a wok). I think a lot of people who can afford insanely expensive kitchen fitouts would rarely have the time/motivation to cook for themselves anyway, and in Thailand they would likely have maids anyway.

A mate of mine in Australia has an outdoor BBQ setup near his pool which is pretty close to a full kitchen - probably set him back at least $15,000. It does get a lot of use though, and he smokes his own fish, meat etc. I was going to mock him, but I'm rather jealous to be honest.