ZBlog, the blog of zknives.com

This weekend is Aritsugu A-Type gyuto training time. Singe bevel knife, super thin, ~12 deg. edge. Because of the single bevel and concave back side one needs to pay extra attention and use correct grip to make straight cuts. No biggie once you get used to it, but does take some practice in the beginning. I finally got things right this month, and now I don't wanna loose my skillz :) Besides, it's always a joy working with a sharp knife, especially with a superb performer like this Aritsugu.

Friday, February 27, 2009 15:32:32

I don't really watch Top Chef show, not as interesting as Iron Chef and chef's themselves aren't that big yet. Anyway, they are still celebrity chefs. Last night, Stefan Richter made sashimi, the trouble was, he froze it first. Why? Because he couldn't get a nice, thin and even slice with the dull knife. Obviously, that didn't go unnoticed and he lost. For something as stupid as a dull knife. How can a chef show up with a dull knife, especially when he's on competition show, on TV, is hard to comprehend. So, yeah chefs are chefs, but they aren't the best knife users. Still better than Bobby Flay opening the can lid with the Shun chef's knife.

Thursday, February 26, 2009 20:35:58

I figured it was time to give that review a final overhaul. Lots of facts and info in it were clearly outdated. Plus, during those years since I wrote it, I've gained new perspective on kitchen knives and their performance. Well, that's it for that particular review. No more updates, especially that the knife is discontinued and technologies used in it were replaced with modern ones, by Henckel.

Thursday, February 26, 2009 18:17:23

Finally got around to finish this one. In between the repairs of the broken radiator fan blade and smog checks. Had to spend few hours fixing the car with my friend, all because of one dumb mechanic who used a cheap plastic zip-tie to fix the radiator fan shroud in place. That place gets, hot, there's lots of vibration, how hard is it to guess that it will break? Oh, well, it's fixed now, so all is good. Not much fun removing the radiator and replacing the fan blade, plus it was 90USD for the new fan blade. Anyway, review is up. Good stone, good price, good performance. Also, I've tried to clarify the confusion with the stone grit, some stores sell it as 12000 grit, others sell it as 8000 grit. Read the review for details.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009 00:03:41

Mondays suck. Especially rainy Mondays. Anyway, added few new terms to Japanese Kitchen Knife glossary. Fixed bunch of syntax errors and typos, improved linking to relevant pages. Hope this helps when reading the reviews or shopping for your next Japanese knife ;)

Monday, February 23, 2009 14:22:48

After using it for around a month I figure it was a time to summarize my experience with it. It was my first natural whetstone and worked out about excellent. No complaints from me. It is a medium grit stone, Nakato or Nakagato in Japanese classification. Sharpening speed is really high for its grit and what's also very nice, it can produce very fine edge for its grit. Not a perfect brick, which is why I got it at a discounted price. I guess, the perfect whetstone of that kind would cost few hundred. pretty expensive, but sharpening with it is much more pleasant experience compared to synthetic whetstones.

Sunday, February 22, 2009 13:25:01

Finally managed to get the black handle 320mm Gude bread knife. You'd think that a bread knife with a price tag well over 100$ shouldn't be hard to buy, but no. First one I had to buy from Europe, nowhere to be found in US. And that place in Denmark had only olive handled Gudes. Now, finally I found one in US, thanks for the tip to knifeforums folks, who else :) Interestingly, this one is thicker a little bit, mainly in the tip area, and it was duller too, out of the box. However, unlike Dutch version, US specimen came in a nice box. The whole thing is messed up somehow. Same model, same maker, still differences. That's in 7-8 months period. Anyway, I'm glad I got it. It's the kind of knife that lasts lifetime. Already sharpened it. Goes through the loaf of bread at half of the blade length. Gotta love this monster.

Friday, February 20, 2009 23:54:36

Finally, I've finished the review of this exceptional piece of cutlery. It's been more than 9 months, sinceI've first placed an order for custom honyaki knife. Then it went for rehandling, and then finally came to me. After roughly 3 months of use in home kitchen I've collected enough data to finish the review. Overall, it's one of the best knives I've ever had, and I've had a lot of knives in my life. Superb cutter, light and very comfortable. Weight pretty much half, ok 60% of what the same size Western kitchen knife would weigh. Despite of the common myth (read marketing BS) that a good kitchen knife should be heavy, it's light and outcuts all of those heavy, fully bolstered and tanged chef's knives. 200g extra weight on the knife won't give you squat in terms of cutting performance, but will get your arm tired much sooner. Anyway, check it out, it is well worth the high price.

Friday, February 20, 2009 16:41:51

Another sharpener mini-review is up. In short, very versatile, relatively small sharpener. If you need to sharpen your serrated bread knives or any other serrations on any knife, except for those microscopic teeth found mostly on POS knives, then this is the thing you need. Oh yeah, serrated knives need sharpening too ;) Imagine that. Still, this is the right tool if you ever go there. Which you should do eventually.

Thursday, February 19, 2009 19:48:08

Updated Strider MH and Benchmade Nimravus reviews. nothing major this time, just a few facts. It's been so long I've looked at those reviews. I really have to do major overhaul for those two. But, so many new knives not even reviewed so far and just 24 hours in a day. On the positive side, finally managed to order black handled Gude Bread Knife. Took me long time to find one. I love this 320mmbladed monster. The best bread knife I have ever used.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009 23:15:02