Japan Trip Knife Suggestions

[jalanpipes]

Agreed, on the points of dropping by a workshop. I have a workshop for my business at my home and would be shocked and probably pretty put off if a customer or potential customer just dropped by unannounced. I have work to do and a life to live. I'm typically happy to accommodate visitors, but only with pre-planning. And many times, even with a scheduled visit, I have no finished work to offer to the visitor for sale. Craftsmen don't typically carry inventory--not if they're any good at what they do, at least.

 

[jalanpipes]

I spent yesterday afternoon with a pair of friends here in Tokyo, one of whom is an craftsman, who has visited and seems to know well a blade smith of a fairly high local reputation. I'm off to Maebashi for a few days, but when I return to Tokyo I plan to visit the retail shop if it can be arranged by my friends. Fun fun!

 

[franzb69]

pictures!

 

[Brad Gibson]

I spent yesterday afternoon with a pair of friends here in Tokyo, one of whom is an craftsman, who has visited and seems to know well a blade smith of a fairly high local reputation. I'm off to Maebashi for a few days, but when I return to Tokyo I plan to visit the retail shop if it can be arranged by my friends. Fun fun!

ahh!! I want some souvenirs!!!

 

[jalanpipes]

I don't know if it's okay to do so, but I could provide a link to my Instagram account where I've been posting photos. It's for my business, but I'm not in the knife business and am not trying to sell you all anything. Can someone let me know if its kosher to post the link here?

So I'm visiting an artisan in my field and his wife walks out to the workshop with a bowl of veggies, a salmon filet, and a pair of knives in boxes. She tells me about the nakiri and yanagiba, and then shows me how she uses them to prepare the foods for her family. It was a really fun experience to see japanese knife and food culture right in their home. She then totally surprised me by boxing up the knives and giving them to me as a gift. It really blew me away.

 

[Brad Gibson]

Nice!

 

[jalanpipes]

Here are a few shots from the trip. I pulled a couple photos from my Instagram feed and the others are from today and yesterday.

A couple shots of the impromptu lesson from my friend's wife who then very generously gave me a nakiri and yanagiba. She said they were so that I could practice before buying nicer steel. A really lovely gesture, for sure, and one that I'll not soon forget.

Yesterday I finished the work portion of my trip, or at least the part where I was working in a studio, to join up with my wife and a group of friends and clients who had just arrived. My wife and a friend made it to the tuna auction and spent the early part of the morning checking out Tsukiji browsing shops while they waited for me. As soon as I arrived we went down to the market area as things were winding down around noon. I had a chance to see some knives in the masamoto and sujimoto shops. There were a bunch of other shops, but since my friend who speaks japanese wasn't with us, I didn't catch the branding. Here's a panorama of the wall in one shop.

Then we headed to the kitchen district to see some more blades and check out a store specializing in restaurant samples for window displays. We ended up spending a while in the Kamata shop. The employees were very helpful and took quite a lot of time with me. I ended up buying three of their shop branded waterstones in addition to two blades. I wanted a Yanagiba, but will wait for another shop to get it. I did buy a 30cm gyuto with kuro-uchi finish and an Ai-Deba-mioroshi. The prices were really reasonable, I thought, and the blade quality seemed very good.

After all the shopping I really wanted to try some Kobe, so we we had a tasting meal that was really incredible. The beef sushi was out of this world, and the Kobe shabu shabu exceeded my high expectations. So far so good.

 

[tripleq]

Mmmmmm. Shabu Shabu. Looks like the shots above are from Tsukiji Masamoto. If memory serves they have the main shop in the outer market and a smaller shop more toward the inner market. Aritsugu has a pretty big shop toward the inner market and a very small shop on the perimiter of the outer market. The smaller Aritsugu has no branding whatsoever on the shop front. You have to look at the knives to see the branding. Looks like a great trip! Have fun!!!

 

[mhlee]

I'm pretty sure that's not Tsukiji Masamoto, at least the one just outside the main Tsukiji market. I spent about an hour at that shop last year, looked through a lot of their stock, and bought a knife there.

I noticed that Tsukiji Masamoto only sells a few non-Masamoto knives. The kanji on those knives vary and do not appear to be Tsukiji Masamoto.

 

[gic]

I'll be visiting Japan as well and I wonder if there are any stores known for really good prices on stones and knives - and of course have a reasonable selection of cool stuff. Or, is Japan a place of fixed prices, so pretty much everyone sells things for the same prices (except of course amazon.jp which seems ot make its own rules :- ) )...

 

[tripleq]

I'm pretty sure that's not Tsukiji Masamoto, at least the one just outside the main Tsukiji market. I spent about an hour at that shop last year, looked through a lot of their stock, and bought a knife there.

I noticed that Tsukiji Masamoto only sells a few non-Masamoto knives. The kanji on those knives vary and do not appear to be Tsukiji Masamoto.

You may be quite right. There is actually a Tsukiji Masamoto knife on the bottom row and that is why I came to that conclusion. The kanji was a lot clearer and darker. I couldn't really see the others. Good observation though. Thanks.