Okay guys, Here we are. First day at work with the fujiwara today and I had a lot of fun with it. I came into work looking for any vegetable prep I could find and of course the prep cooks had been there for about 6 hours already and had done anything they possibly could that had to do with vegetables and cutting stuff. Given it was a saturday it wasn't the best day to look for prep as well because my restaurant does lunch on friday saturday sunday so the lunch cooks had been prepping up things as well.
I am the fish cook at my work and today I had to butcher some big eye tuna and some swordfish and instead of using a suji or a petty I decided that this may be the only thing I get to use the fujiwara for today so I tackled the fish butchery without a problem. It was a real joy to use this knife on proteins. It cut super clean and easily through both fish and I was happy with how nimble the knife felt... especially considering the height and weight of the fujiwara.
I took some pics of the fish I cut with the knife to show you guys... they are iphone pics so bare with me!
some big eye #1 ahi tuna
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and some swordfish
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After I got done with the fish I ran around setting up my station and looking for things to do with the hot apps and pantry stations and the hot apps guy asked me to make him some carmelized onions for his burger toppings... I was pretty excited to do some veg at this point so I got out about 10 onions and chopped away. In the cleaning of the ends and removing of skins this knife was almost dreamlike. It flew laserlike through the onion butts and I was pretty excited to get to chopping. When I did end up chopping I noticed having to work a lot more than expected as the knife did end up having a bit of drag through the onions... I am guessing due to its height it was chiseling when I got about halfway up each onion when I was chopping. It made for some extra work, but the added height to the blade also was nice to guide my hand safe and sound through the onions without skipping a beat. The thing is a workhorse and a half.
I barely noticed the handle at all because this knife is PURE BLADE! This is a beast of a gyuto! Later in the night I made some ceviche for my dishwashing team and flew through tiny brunoise of serranos and anaheims peppers, avacodos and red onion, and lemons and limes like nobodies business! I've really had a fun first day with this knife and am very suprised at how much I like the tall profile of it.
I am a rather large guy at 6'3" and about 230 lbs. so my hands are no small thing. For some reason I have always liked the feel of a really small and nimble tool no matter what it might be so I have always thought I would like a really small knife for every task. This is true to some extent, but the feel of this tall profile gyuto was great and gave me a second wind of confidence that I wasn't accustomed to when it came to chopping tasks.
I will give more updates as the week goes on. I really like the visible hamon on the knife. I think a hot vinegar bath would make this thing look like a beast and a half! and some mike henry shoes on it might make me fall in love.
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Brad