Serious Eats reviews Nakiris

[mengwong]

In yet another example of Japanese knives going mainstream… fortunately Serious Eats limited their review to mass-market knives available at scale. Even so they seem to have instantly OOSed their top recs at all the vendors lol

We Tested the Best Nakiri Knives—Three Sliced Through the Competition

We tested 13 popular nakiri knives to see which ones sliced, diced, and chopped the best. We evaluated each knife's sharpness, handle, and balance, too.

www.seriouseats.com

 

[btbyrd]

 

[deltaplex]

The way they approached their testing made it all but guaranteed they'd end up picking something similar to their winner. For the people that are regularly in here, it's more informative of the methods and evaluation criteria than it is about any of the qualities we tend to be interested in.

 

[Delat]

They basically tested for OOTB sharpness and spine thickness. A good test for someone who only plans to get their knives sharpened by a guy with a belt sander once every few years, which I assume must be their primary audience.

 

[deltaplex]

They basically tested for OOTB sharpness and spine thickness. A good test for someone who only plans to get their knives sharpened by a guy with a belt sander once every few years, which I assume must be their primary audience.

and lightness!

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

What a waste of time. Everyone already knows the world's greatest nakiri so why bother?

 

[Naftoor]

What a waste of time. Everyone already knows the world's greatest nakiri so why bother?

I’m incredibly annoyed with that video. I love milk street as a magazine, but:

“some mistakes people make with knives is they saw back and forth, or they go straight up and down”

-immediately chops for the first cut.

Also he literally did vertical cuts, not radial cuts on the onion

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

I’m incredibly annoyed with that video. I love milk street as a magazine, but:

“some mistakes people make with knives is they saw back and forth, or they go straight up and down”

-immediately chops for the first cut.

Also he literally did vertical cuts, not radial cuts on the onion

Oh sir, I present, "Kitchen-To!"

 

[Naftoor]

“I feel totally in control”

While looking entirely terrified of the blade in his hand.

Oh sir, I present, "Kitchen-To!"

 

[Justinv]

They basically tested for OOTB sharpness and spine thickness. A good test for someone who only plans to get their knives sharpened by a guy with a belt sander once every few years, which I assume must be their primary audience.

At least they didn’t like handle heavy Shuns, and thick behind the edge wedgemonsters.

 

[Dan-]

Serious Eats reviewer also held the knife in a hammer grip.

 

[miggus]

What a curious article. It has an interesting mixture of very solid information and... less solid information. What annoys me most is that they test edge quality like it is an unchanging, inherent quality to the knife (wouldn't that be practical. And boring). And of course the whole presentation of a clear hierarchy of these knives is somewhat misleading.

Then again, explaining that both thick and thin blades have their advantages, that steel type isn't all too important unless you get non-stainless, what carbon means are all pretty well-explained. Special bonus points for the sharpening section, which might make it sound a bit too easy but simply refers to whetstones. So for mainstream knife stuff, even some established sources often put out content that is much worse.

 

[blokey]

The Tojiro A-1 they recommended is actually pretty good, it’s what I’d recommend too for a budget Nakiri.

 

[tostadas]

I like that they don't use the word "forged" like many of the mass production companies like to do. I'd say overall, especially considering the target audience this article is for, it's pretty good.

Kinda like if I'm trying to buy a car for myself. I'm not a mechanic or car modder. I know how to pump gas and know how to wash the vehicle to keep it clean. So I just need to know what will get me where I need to go reliably. This article is written with a similar goal in mind and gets the info across in an easy to understand fashion.

 

[ThirdJewel]

Don't really have anything to add. Just want to point out how annoyed I am that they are mixing imperial and metric units. It can be both imperial and metric, or either one of them. Absolutely no reason to use imperial for everything except for the spine where they use metric.

 

[tostadas]

Don't really have anything to add. Just want to point out how annoyed I am that they are mixing imperial and metric units. It can be both imperial and metric, or either one of them. Absolutely no reason to use imperial for everything except for the spine where they use metric.

It's cuz Americans are terrible at fractions. If you call out a dimension as 3/32", you're gonna lose 90% of your readers

 

[mengwong]

(288/320 of your readers)

 

[zizirex]

Serious Eats reviewer also held the knife in a hammer grip.

apparently, a lot of Japanese use hammer grips and they have good knife skills.

 

[Heckel7302]

Oh sir, I present, "Kitchen-To!"

“(Western Chef knife) It’s not a great design, and here’s why: Its too heavy…”

“One of the designs that we do like is the Chinese Cleaver, they tend to be on the heavy side, it’s great!”

He’s just the worst.

 

[sansho]

Serious Eats Needs Affiliate Marketing Revenue

We "Tested" 13 Nakiri Knives—Three Sliced Through the Competition
Our top pick was the Tojiro A-1 Nakiri Knife. Fortunately, it was available on Amazon.

We used ChatGPT to spit out some drivel and then proceeded to load it up with affiliate links. Please click them.

 

[Jovidah]

“(Western Chef knife) It’s not a great design, and here’s why: Its too heavy…”

“One of the designs that we do like is the Chinese Cleaver, they tend to be on the heavy side, it’s great!”

He’s just the worst.

It's probably his roundabout subconscious way of saying he prefers forward-heavy knives.

 

[heliosphere]

They're in good company... I got their top pick (Tojiro A-1 nakiri) a while back and posted about it here:

Tojiro A-1 nakiri

Based on the recommendation from someone here on KKF, I bought a Tojiro A-1 nakiri, model F-300. I’ve had it for a few days and really like it so far. It’s very thin behind the edge and comes extremely sharp out of the box. And it’s cheap. The thickness behind the edge is similar to my Shigeki...

www.kitchenknifeforums.com

 

[daveb]

Serious Eats, Kenji, once called the "Misen" the Holy Grail of knives. $$$$!

Doubtful of anything they have to say about anything.

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

Serious Eats, Kenji, once called the "Misen" the Holy Grail of knives. $$$$!

Doubtful of anything they have to say about anything.

The lure of promo dollars is strong!

 

[btbyrd]

Kenji tried to walk that back by saying that the holy grail is "the cup of a humble carpenter" like in the Indiana Jones movies. Because that's totally how everyone else uses the term. He also endorsed the "seemingly okay but not worth singling out for being anything special" knives from Kan.

I like Kenji a lot, but I often disagree with his equipment recommendations.

 

[Jovidah]

The general reasoning was sound... the specific recommendation probably less so. But I do agree with the general reasoning. While we might consider knives in the 100-300 dollar range as 'bang for the buck midrangers', for most normal people the mental picture is very different and the acceptable budget range is in the 50-100 range. What's most relevant for the majority of people is not 'the absolute best knife', but 'the best normie-proof knife within a price range you can still recommend to an average person not obsessed with win-maxing his kitchen gear regardless of the price'.

 

[wcothran]

I guess normie-proof means the OOTB sharpness is a defining feature lol