Recent content by phan1

Was wondering if you guys have ever used a "microwave steamer". Do they work well? http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/panasonic/ne-3280/p745.aspx I'm opening a very fast casual sushi place but want some cooked items on the menu as well, such as steamed chicken. The chicken would already...

Well, I was wondering if you guys have gotten to the point where your knife is just dead. Not dull, just completely dead. I have a gyuto that I learned on and kept on using it and chipped it many many times to the point where it looks like a sujihiki now. And it's at the point where it just...

I thought this because there aren't really many places to get Japanese knives from. I can get soy sauce anywhere, but I can only get Japanese knives from very, very few places (though that's changing). It's like buying foie gras rather than soy sauce; there's only a couple farms in the US that...

Correct me if I'm wrong Jon, but it seems that it's pretty hard to get a poor Japanese knife in the US than it would be in Japan... I'm assuming that if you're a knifemaker in Japan, your product has to be damn good for it to actually have demand from overseas. Also, since they're aren't many...

This is a good topic. In my experience, I've used W#1 which got very sharp and sharpened up super clean (no wire edges). Perfect on paper, but it wasn't the most practical knife for me. It rusted really easily and the edge retention wasn't great. I prefered my B#2 over it, just a more...

I've seen some crazy WTB posts on these boards, and they've been fulfilled. But this one is probably the best one yet. If this gets fulfilled, I am officially never buying a knife from a knife store ever again and will post a WTB aoko mizu honyaki 21cm petty with ebony handle and ivory...

I wouldn't go for a deba. A narrow blade makes the most sense for this job: a suji, or honkotsu. Personally I have an 18cm petty that I really love because it's a "tweener" knife that is small enough to do petty jobs but also long enough that it can be used as a suji as well. My...

It's pretty crazy that there's a market for these type of products in Japan at all. Can I assume that there's a ton of expensive stones that are not necessarily aimed at the cutlery market such as tools and such? At this point, I think you might as well start selling sharpening wheels, LOL.

Sounds awsome, but I personally would prefer to buy them a la carte rather than having to buy them together... For me, would really love to have the lower grit stone, but will likely have little use for the higher grit one. I like your Aoto too much. :)

Just got a chance to use this guy. I know everyone has their own preferances for what they want out of a stone, but this stone is something that came out of my wet dreams. The stone has an incredible amount of balance. It's like Goldilocks finding the bed that's "just right". It has the...

Group order from Korin? That's cool! Is it just the standard 15% off or more since it's in a group? I remember there was an awsome Konosuke group buy a couple ages ago...

+1000! I own a kiritsuke and lost the tip due to the cutting board. I was cutting a BIG bunch of herbs and lifted the heel of my knife way up high to do it and "stabbed" into my cutting board. The thing is, I didn't notice I lost the tip until I was done going through buckets of cut herbs! I...

I think heirkby is asking why Ginsanko knives tend to be cladded knives rather than monosteel like the Inox Honyaki series, which is a pretty good question. I'm assuming that even though Ginsanko isn't as hard as carbon steel, it's still pretty damn hard so that it's easier to shape and make by...

Hi guys, I'm trying to smoke food and I was wondering if there's a difference in flavors when smoking without a direct flame (like over a stovetop) or with a flame (like blowtorching woodchips)? I know for woodchips it doesn't matter, but what about smoking using delicate things like hay, tea...

I'm not going to say 1k or any particular grit stone is "best" for fine slicing. I'm just saying that any high-level knife cut in a high-end Japanese restaurant can be done off a King 1k stone, because I've seen it and experienced it for myself. It's more important that your knife is "fresh...