The Gaggenau are also side swing opening but they do come with a hefty, hefty price tag. We got our Gagg combi steam oven off ebay half off. It was a 270 (previous model to the 400 series available now). It was new in box with a 5-year warranty. It works great and I love that it is plumbed. It's worth considering. Appliances stores will often sell off demo models too with warranty and I have seen items on craigslist. I use both my conventional oven and the combi oven for similar and different things. My conventional oven goes higher (to 500, the Gagg goes to 450) and my conventional oven has a broiler and it is bigger. The Gagg non-steam mode is convection so it also cooks faster/hotter and I'm still getting used to that (I've had it about 2 months). Sometimes I use the Gagg because I need two ovens, sometimes I use the Gagg as a steam oven or to jointly steam and roast. I love the flexibility. I do have a friend with the $300 cuisinart steam oven and she LOVES it, but she isn't doing a remodel right now and it lets her test run the combi steam oven idea. I'm pretty sure when she does update she'll get a combi steam oven. I'm not sure how it would look to have a drop down and side opening door. My initial thought is how well they match in terms of material is probably more important. Good luck.

We have a simple little Farberware countertop oven, and we love it. You see, we live in a studio loft apartment with a tiny partial kitchen, so any cooking we do must be by electric appliance. (There is no stove hookup.) Our little kitchen consists of a small double sink, a nook for a refrigerator, and a bit of countertop space with cabinets underneath. Our most important appliance is a restaurant style Bunn dual burner coffeemaker. Our second most used appliance is the Farberware oven, with 2 Nu-Wave induction burners running a close third. Fourth on the list is a Nu-Wave induction/convection oven, with a George Foreman grill placing fifth on the list, which is used quite a bit. And bringing up the rear are a couple of crockpots in varying sizes. Amazingly, we are able to prepare any dish in this makeshift kitchen of ours. We even put up pickles and apple butter, and do a lot of canning in the fall using the appliances listed. We simply switch them out, plug in the needed item, and away we go! I would recommend looking at various brands of convection ovens to get the size you need. Ours is rather small and probably wouldn't fit a large turkey or huge ham, but it works for our needs.

Hey Roseio - sorry to be asleep at the switch. That would be because the kid decided to swim at 5 in the morning ... wha???? Countertop depths. I don't really even have too much more to add to the excellent comments above. If I could have I would have put 30" deep counters everywhere. People I spoke with seemed to think I was crazy to want the depth; I can't begin to understand why. I know I'm messy and stuff just winds up on the countertops. But -- well, I know it's not true; I was just about to say "isn't everyone" but definitely they aren't. I know someone with an absolutely huge kitchen, massive, with not an anything in sight. Kinda eery, actually. And she is a rather gourmet cook so it's not as if the place isn't used. Ahem, off-topic. I think I mentioned that the countertop to the right of my fridge is 30" deep and low, about 31.5"h I think. I use is as my "baking counter" but it winds up being the food-unpacking counter, and food wrapping counter, and mixing, etc. My cabinets are all-custom, though in a factory (as opposed to "Joe's" shop). So the additional cost of making extra deep drawers is due mostly to the hardware as opposed to materials or labor. I really like the deep drawers aesthetically as well as from a utilitarian perspective. I know you can pull 24" drawer boxes out to 27" and put your counter on top of that and have a "deep" counter. It feels silly to me; all that wasted space in the back. That's just me. And some of my drawers ended up with a lot of space in the back that I realize now I could have and should have extended. Grump. Hadn't thought about it. So the thing is, I wanted a 36" super susan corner cabinet but if I made that deep then a bay window adjacent to the cabinet would have forced the counter expanse to have been really massive; cleaning problems and window-opening problems, etc. So I kept that stretch of the countertop at 24"; then later down the L close to the range it goes back to 27"d. You asked: "How deep are your countertops anyway? Why did you decide to do this? What advantages have you discovered to it? Any disadvantages? Does it cost a lot more for deeper countertops? Is it harder to reach into your uppers?" I decided to do this because I had the space to and I can see no reason why you wouldn't want more rather than less countertop, frankly. I also asked for the overhang to be 1.5". This caused major conniptions among many even though I'd asked for this all along and had gotten bids, I thought, including it. It was ridiculous -- I just don't get why you'd go to all the trouble of making gorgeous cabinets and not extend the countertop adequately across the top of them to protect the cabinets beneath. For some reason the standard this person, who works with the cab makers, uses is more like 7/8"-1"; I think it looks silly and is even more so functionally. What I would up with is 1 3/8". Again, it's a win-win - more protection, more workspace (if you can squeeze it out of your floor plan). They actually ended up threatening to charge me more for the extra 1/2" because it wound up adding for square footage, sort of. They haven't yet. I didn't ask for a deduction for the square footage I lost due to their error though at this I was tempted to! Anyway, I'm digressing again.... So advantages are: (a) more acreage on the countertop; that could be seen as a disadvantage if you don't need or use it - it does cost a little bit more. (b) better protection for cabinets beneath. (c) More real estate for sticking deeper drawers into if that's of use to you or appeals. That will cost more too, not lots more but some. And everything adds up. Note that the deep counters can be had without additional deep drawer expense (just pull drawers forward and leave space at the back). (d) Some activities, like rolling out pastry, really benefit functionally for having a deep work area. (e) If you have a monstrous fridge it actually helps hide the size (hadn't thought about this in advance; just happened); that depth is sort of defined already by the fridge and sort of lost when you don't stick the countertop up to it. Indeed I think the 24" relatively short countertop depth may serve to emphasize the deepness of the fridge. Disadvantages: (i) extra cost (can be mitigated in various ways mentioned already). (ii) lose aisle room or whatever; it can be a tradeoff of where you want to use your kitchen layout, in counterspace or aisle space - depends on how much space you have of course. (iii) as mentioned, if you're shorter you may have more trouble reaching to the back of the counter and also up to overhanging cabinets. (iv) Also, if you're older these may be more of a concern. (v) And I bet if you have 27" counters coming in to a corner, that edge could get a long way away (like, 38", which really is a long way away). I do have 15" uppers over my deep counter. They are 17" above a 37"h countertop, and are set at the same height on the wall above my low countertop, whatever that comes out to. There is absolutely no problem reaching the uppers for me or my kids (shortest is, I dunno, 4'9" maybe?) but ... I also have a corner below that upper where the counter goes back to 24" so you can access the upper cabinet from closer, if you follow. My uppers are very tall and there's no way I can get into them at the top or even middle back without a step stool. I'm using that all the time and plan on keeping it *very* handy in a nearby coat closet. This doesn't bother me at all as I'm fairly healthy, middle aged. If I were a tad less hale it could perhaps be a problem. (When I say "all the time" I mean at the moment while still moving in. I'm not storing things I need ready access to that require a step stool!) One thing about my countertops being 1.5" -- and that measurement is from the cabinet *door edge*, not cabinet box. Note very well this distinction -- the makers of these things seem stuck on this erudite measurement from the box which is completely impractical. As an "end user" I don't care what the measurement is from the box, I care what the "take-home" measurement is, what I see and use, the measurement from the *door front*. Be careful to clarify with your workmen this distinction so that you're both communicating about the same measurement! Anyway, insisting on having 1.5" from the drawer front countertops resulted in there being a gap between the bottom of my countertop edging and the roughtop they set on the cabinets to support the stone. Probably this doesn't have to happen, but it's what my guy, who doesn't often make countertops this deep, did. I thought I wouldn't mind, but it is actually kinda cheezy. In retrospect, he should have *listened* to me saying I wanted 1.5" overhang (and I should have clarified I meant from the drawer front, not box), and he should have had the guys cut roughtop not to the box edge but a little bit larger, I think. Alternatively he could have made his edging deeper. I don't know what's standard but this could be an issue you might want to look into. HTH! BTW, I think TopSolutions may be usually right, but I've seen several different ways of pricing things. YMMV for sure.

I have a Tovala - I don't think it's as big as you're looking for. I just wanted to encourage you not to be put off by the "app" cooking idea if the Anova otherwise meets your needs. I use both app and manual cooking with my Tovala, although not their meal delivery, and find the app cooking to be as painless as the manual and at times really nice to use. I love my Tovala so totally get where you're coming from with countertop steam!