Unagisaki?

Does anyone here clean a lot of eel? 99.99999% of the time my sushi bar (and as far as I know most others) uses frozen Unagi and Anago. From time to time I get live salt water eel from the girl who I get crabs from :O and I need a better way of cleaning them. My setup right now is an ajideba/petty combo and a stainless nail. While I can get the job done, it leaves much to be desired. Im not working in an Unagiya going through hundreds of eel a day so I really don't see myself spending $299-$499 like the Tojiros I've seen on e-bay. I would love to pick up a Watanabe but even that seems a little pricy for the limited use the knife would currently get. Any body know of any other(cheaper) options? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

You might try the BST forum. Let folks know you're looking for an unagisaki and see what pops up. I'm pretty sure anything you'll find here will be far more reasonably priced.

I'll message you.

That's hamokiri salty

Yeah I kinda got that. I knew it was eel something.

Never used the the damn thing.

The Osaka-style unagi saki (Masamoto KS1518) is about $200 on rakuten. I think those knives are good for most sized unagi and anago. They're a little hard to use with big eels because if they're not razor sharp you dont' have much blade to work with, but even with the big unagi saki you use the tip for most of the work - if you need a longer edge after you cut it open you could just switch to a deba. I think the little Osaka style ones are best for a beginner anyways.

http://item.rakuten.co.jp/subaru/ks1518/

la2tokyo said:

The Osaka-style unagi saki (Masamoto KS1518) is about $200 on rakuten. I think those knives are good for most sized unagi and anago. They're a little hard to use with big eels because if they're not razor sharp you dont' have much blade to work with, but even with the big unagi saki you use the tip for most of the work - if you need a longer edge after you cut it open you could just switch to a deba. I think the little Osaka style ones are best for a beginner anyways.

http://item.rakuten.co.jp/subaru/ks1518/

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Anyone give me a low down on rakuten? I see that you can get Masamoto KS 240mm gyutos off there for a tempting price, but that in turn makes me skeptical..

I've never ordered from rakuten, but in my experience the prices there are about average for a good price in Japan. You could probably get it 5-10% cheaper at a cheap knife shop in Tokyo if you know where to go, but usually not a lot cheaper. Rakuten is a collection of different sellers almost like eBay, but I believe it's guaranteed by Rakuten the way Amazon resellers are, so if they say they would ship to the US I wouldn't worry about getting ripped off. The only thing I would worry about would be communication and mistakes in shipping address.

Why can't salties be used like usuba? Are they not ground as thin?

eshua said:

Why can't salties be used like usuba? Are they not ground as thin?

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Hamokiri are heavier than usuba and usually much longer. I rarely see one shorter than 270.

I was intrigued and had to search. Found this vid, that's a crazy knife.

http://youtu.be/P7czxu3Nzdw

Thanks for the help guys! Ended up picking up a small eel knife off a member here (thanks stefan!) Some of those videos of guys breaking down eel are nuts. I like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhdHqc-Q49U

cschoedler said:

Thanks for the help guys! Ended up picking up a small eel knife off a member here (thanks stefan!) Some of those videos of guys breaking down eel are nuts. I like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhdHqc-Q49U

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That guy is good!