There are two versions of the Inomata Japanese Rice washing Bowl with Strainer, and I purchased them both. Below I’ll describe them and outline the differences:PURPOSE: These bowls were designed for rinsing rice before cooking, and they do so quite well. Rinsing rice is one of those challenging activities where you can’t use a traditional colander because the holes may be too big and the rice will pass through, and a standard bowl is tricky to get all the water out without pouring some rice out along with it. You could use these bowls for rinsing other things as well, like beans, faro, fruits or vegetables. You may or may not have good results with smaller grains like quinoa for example, as quinoa is quite small.Both bowls are made in Japan of Polypropylene and are stamped “PP” on the underside. They indicate a minimum temperature of -20 °C (-4 °F) degrees and a max temperature of 120 °C or 248 °F. Polypropylene, according to Wikipedia, will melt at 171 °C, or 340 °F. Since water boils at 100 °C or 212 °F, you should theoretically be able to use this as a strainer for pasta (as many shoppers have asked) but it drains so slowly that you wouldn’t want to. I have also heard that Polypropylene can be damaged (cosmetically) by prolonged contact with boiling water, so I did not want to test this out.The small bowl nests inside the large bowl, although not completely perfect. Both bowls have a reinforced hole in the handle (if you can call it that, it’s really just a small tab) which you can use for hanging if you have a small hook.Note the measurements for each bowl described in the listing, where the small bowl is listed as 2 qt or 8 cups, and the large bowl is listed as 2.5 quarts or 10 cups. Note that a customary “cup” for measurement in the United States is 8 fluid ounces, or about 236.6 milliliters. Most rice cookers come with their own measuring cups which are designed to measure out a portion of rice, which is usually less than a standard customary “cup” in US measurement. My Zojirushi, for example, came with two cups, one for white rice (which actually holds 180ml, or just over 6 fluid ounces, or a generous ¾ cup) and one for brown rice (which actually holds 171 ml, or about 5.7 fluid ounces, or slightly less than ¾ of a cup).I measured the capacity of each bowl in customary fluid ounces by lining each bowl with plastic wrap and then filling with water. More on that test below.SMALL BOWL (2 qt): This bowl is 8 inches in diameter, 6 inches tall, and the diameter of the base is 6 inches. The small bowl does not have holes in the bottom, only drainage holes on the spout. If this bowl were solid, and filled completely to the top, it would hold 8.5 cups of water. To use it for it’s intended purpose, you wouldn’t want to fill it that high since you’d spill rice out trying to rinse it. You can rinse a maximum of about 8 (customary US cups) cups of rice in this bowl, 5-7 would be more comfortable (7-9 “rice cooker” measuring cups!). Because this bowl doesn’t have holes on the bottom, you could leave about some water standing if you had any reason to soak something in the bowl. For this, you can fill the bowl with 4 cups before it starts spilling out the spout.LARGE BOWL (2.5 qt): This bowl is 8.5 inches in diameter, 6 inches tall, and the diameter of the base is 6 inches. This bowl has small holes in the bottom in addition to the drainage holes on the spout. These holes are about the diameter of a large paperclip, unfolded. The base is raised slightly higher than the small bowl to allow for drainage. If this bowl were solid, and filled completely to the top, it would hold 10.5 cups of water. To use it for it’s intended purpose, you wouldn’t want to fill it that high since you’d spill rice out trying to rinse it. You can rinse a maximum of about 9-10 (customary US) cups of rice in this bowl, 6-8 cups comfortably (10-12 “rice cooker” measuring cups!). Because this bowl has holes on the bottom, all the water would eventually drain out so you can’t soak anything in it. I would like to point out though, that the holes on the bottom are very small, and will drain slowly, so you don’t need a constant, heavy stream of water for rinsing. They are so small in fact, that the bowl will retain a shallow pool of water because the weight of about ½ inch of water wouldn’t create enough pressure to completely drain through the holes. The holes are about the diameter of a large paperclip, unfolded.I hope this review helps anyone interested in purchasing these bowls. I couldn’t make up my mind, and since they were a good price, I bought both, but if I had to do it again and buy only one, I’d choose the larger one with holes in the bottom since it’s more functional (and holds a little bit more, without taking up much more room).