Here's my go to knife in the kitchen... a Takamura Chromax 210 mm gyuto. If you're willing to take care of them and understand their limitations, nothing really beats Japanese steel. I have the Suehiro Cerax 1k/6k combo stone for sharpening and find it more than adequate for my needs (avid home cook).
I decided to venture into the world of Japanese kitchen knives
- Thread starter tsellati
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That's quite cool!
Obviously one tries to avoid going to Sydney wherever possible, but if you do have the misfortune of finding yourself there at any point you can ameliorate the situation by going here: Leung Tim - the other very good quality Chinese cleaver producer along with CCK - somewhat randomly have a kithcenware shop in one of the eastern suburbs, along with their main Hong Kong outlet.
In a similar vein - CCK's only shop outside HK appears to be in Toronto.
Also if you don't know it - strongly recommend a Chinese kitchenware shop in Melbourne (Richmond) called Chefland. It's the only place I know that sells CCK in Aus, I'm sure there are others, but only one I've come across.
I'll check it out next time I'm up that way.
The CCK I use is this one. It is san mai 67 layer Damascus on a VG10 core, and a G10 handle. It's glides through sweet potatoes and pumpkin.
Not exactly a traditional, almost like a cross with a nakiri, but it works well.
I didn't know there was a Cerax 1k/6k combi, I'm not sure I even knew there was a Cerax 6k. I assume it's as excellent as the rest of them...?
Is that a CCK?! I know they make all sorts of different knives (Westerns &c.), but I hadn't seen that before...
I don't have experience with any of the others to compare to, this is the only one I've tried. It's working well for me so far. Disclaimer: I'm still a relative novice at sharpening, but found a few very helpful videos early on that got me started (Carter Cutlery has a brilliant tutorial on YouTube).
Well I imagine you've chosen a pretty ace stone!
A Cerax 1/3k was the first waterstone I ever had, and for a long time I didn't know what it was. I subsequently bought a few other stones of similar grits, but could never work out why my beaten up old combi was better than any (more expensive) stone I got.
Until I did a bit of research and discovered the random stone I bought because it was the only one in the shop was a Cerax, so actually rather good.
Haha ya, I recall doing a fair amount of research before I got it (bit of a rabbit hole there). It worked out thankfully.
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