Allright, let's do this. If you don't like to read just look at the bottom of this message for the outcome.
First off, a big thank you to aboynamedsuita for taking the time to drive over to my place after work and spend just over 3 hours going over everything with me and letting me go to town on some fruit/veg. Outstanding generosity in sharing his time, knives and knowledge with a commoner like myself. Nobody got murdered, which is always nice.
Full disclosure, I cut my thumb open within the first 5 minutes of our visit and promptly covered it up with the only band-aids we have in the house: Mickey Mouse children band aids that my 2 year old daughter uses. Now that I got that off my chest, let's get on with it. Instead of talking about every knife individually, I'll go about this review differently. Since he didn't have any of the knives on my "maybe list", I essentially went into this telling myself I wanted to come out with a final decision on 3 things: Japanese vs Western Handle, Blade length and laser vs medium blade.
He did not let me cut anything with the Kato, nor the Shigefusa nakiri... but damn they looked amazing. The Kato was a work of art.
I used the following (Left to Right on the picture posted by aboynamedsuita):
Misono Swedish Carbon steel 300mm
Takamura HSPS Pro R2 240mm
Tojiro DP 210mm
Moritaka AS 210mm
Misono Swedish Carbon steel Honesuki (didn't cut any chickens, it was just to look at)
Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan ZDP-189 Petty 165mm
1. Western Vs Japanese handle:
I was hell bent on getting a Japanese handle, if you read back through this now very long thread. This was my first time ever holding a knife with Japanese handle. The Moritaka felt good in the hand. It had a D handle. The Petty has an octagon handle. I think I prefer the D. But you know what... hold the others with the western handle felt absolutely fine, and more normal in my hands because I guess I'm just used to it. If i learned anything, is that now I am not completely ruling out having a western handle on whatever knife I pick. So this was a great eye opener. Also, the ZDP Petty was amazing... I peeled a kiwi with it and slide up an orange and removed the fruit from the skin after it was cut in wedges. Damn that thing is a scalpel. But then I asked my wife to try it... and she said she didn't want to get the handle dirty because he hands were full of ginger and oil (she was cooking next to us). It was untreated normal handle (not sure wood)... it looks like it would absorb and stain anything you would put on it. So my wife wouldn't want to use it when pitting/cutting cherries, strawberries, etc because it would likely stain the handle (we do lots of this due to our kids). I think you can treat it with something but it seems to defeat the purpose of avoiding using a knife for a job because you will stain the handle. So in conclusion, maybe a western handle for a petty... japanese handle for gyuto.
2. Blade Length:
My main objective was to determine if I wanted 240mm or 270mm. I brought out a ruler before aboynamedsuita came over. Well turns out I'm an idiot. I have been using my zwilling pro 8 inch for years now... I've obviously gotten used to it, it feel very normal to me. Now I suck at conversion, and here in Canada we use the metric system, like normal people, so it's hard to know how long 8 inches is. For some unknown reason, I was associating 8 inches to be 240mm, probably because I was told 8 inches is "standard" and 240mm is "standard", and my brain made the connection. Turns out my 8 inch chef knife is actually only 200mm... and here I thought I was using a 240mm. Furthermore, due to the insane belly on the Zwilling (which I had and never really use), my straight working surface for chopping on the blade is more like 150mm. So this alone blew my mind.
First knife I pick up was the Misono 300mm. Petina-ed to crap, mofo dragon on the side... most badass thing I have ever seen (except for the Kato). Whoever said the dragons on the misono were cool in a previous comment, you were right. The knife was surprisingly nimble and light for such a monster. However your hand is so far from the end of the blade that doing work with the tip is not precise. Your elbow is tucked in and sticking out behind your body to get it to land normally on your cutting board. This was awkward. 300mm too long. There was no 270mm blade so next up was the takamura. It felt great. Medium sized blade with some heft. Cutting with it had momentum, weight, and was responsive overall. I have a large working area so the fact the tip is sticking out of my cutting board in not a problem. I liked the weight and length, but precision work like doing tip slicing on the onion, was difficult for me and my hand was wobbling about. I'm sure I could get the hang of it though. Then I picked up the Moritaka 210mm... you know that feeling when you pick up the jug of milk in the fridge but you don't know it's almost empty and are expecting it to be heavy but it's not? Same thing... That thing was light as a feather and took me by surprise. Onto cutting various things (cherry tomatoes, onions, potatoes, green onions, leeks) it was amazing. It seemed to me I had more control, more confidence. The feeling differed from the beefier, thicker, longer 240mm Takamura. I finally understand everyone's comments here that there isn't a "better" blade out there, they just feel different. They both felt great, for different reasons. The satisfying heavy momentum of the Takamura was replaced with a crisper, lighter cutting action of the Moritaka generated more by your hand control than the weight of the knife.
210mm seemed to be the sweet spot for me. It's almost all a flat profile with any Gyuto so coming from the zwilling with the large belly, I already feel like 210mm is a jump in size considering all the new real estate I can use on the blade, with no compromise to control. The 240 felt long but I could get use to it. Now I am left to wonder 210mm vs 240mm. I only cut one thing at a time, like 1 onion or 1 tomato or 1 carrot. You can do this with a 210mm no problem. I feel like the only time I might ever tell myself "man I wish I had 30 more millimeters" would be either in bed with my wife, or if I'm cutting the occasional watermelon on gigantic piece of boneless meat.
Conclusion: I had more control using the 210mm and I suck at converting imperial to metric.
3. Laser vs medium gyuto:
I started the thread wanting a laser, then got convinced extra girth isn't bad, as long as the "grind" is good. The most laser knife I had was the Moritaka. The thicker medium knives were the Tojiro DP 210mm and the Takamura. The Tojiro felt sluggish and I really did not connect with it. I'd pick the Moritaka over the tojiro without hesitation. The Takamura cut way better then the Tojiro and I think that is due to the shape of the blade. I also like that it had that extra girth, it felt like the knife was doing the cutting and it felt super solid when you did chop cutting. Push cutting was easy because it's weight helped with momentum and was a satisfying feeling. The Morikata was thin and light. It felt more like an extension of your hand, and required hand pressure and more concentration on hand stability to get a good cut. But man that cut was "crisp" and very responsive. For chop cutting it did a great job, I felt I could go faster and it made me feel like a pro chef... but slamming that thing on the board during chopping triggered a sense of "omg will i break it" because it was so thin and that AS was hard as all hell. Perhaps with more practice I can learn to control it better. But yea, it's weird, I felt more confident with a big burly knife for it's toughness and weight, but not as much control. With the laser I felt more in control but the trade off was a requirement for a higher degree of concentration for precise movements and a dread of chipping or breaking something. So again, everything you guys have been telling me so far is spot on and all starting to make sense. There is no "better", it's just trade offs and different feelings.
Conclusion: I don't know which I prefer. They were both awesome.
There you have it. I have learned so much by having the opportunity to get my hands on some knives and put all the comments and tips i've been reading on here to good use. It has shed some light on what I like and don't like and I come out of it smarter.
I think I'm going for Japanese handle for Gyuto.. and probably a western handle petty in the future
210mm is a good fit for me, which I was not expecting.
Wanting a very thin behind the edge gyuto but maybe not as thin/light/bendy as a Ginga. Turns out I do like a tiny bit of heft.
So I guess my list is now:
1. ITINOMONN STAINLESS KASUMI 210MM WA GYUTO
2. GENGETSU 210MM SEMI-STAINLESS WA-GYUTO
Unless someone has any other recommendations given the above mentioned info.
