Moritaka - Aogami #2 series Gyuto 9.5" / 240 mm (Follow up)
255 / 240 / 50 / 3 / 1 / +40 / 166g
Obviously, the not having used the knife yet situation got resolved as soon as the handle was conditioned.
BTW, these are amazing to secure a cutting board on the counter, underside breathes well and won't soak in anything, rises it up a bit which is good, and easily washed afterwards.
On a first run, I had specific cuts I wanted to test the grind with:
- slicing a garlic clove to about rice grain shape/size, not obsessing on the precision, just horizontal slices then mince. We're on the good side of that thick grind - very shallow produce, and the Moritaka did very well.
- mincing an onion, then again not particularly obsessing over a perfect brunoise, just targeting slight pieces that won't overwhelm the rice (duh!) this prep is intended for. The knife wedges when comes the time to halve such a small red onion. Otherwise, the horizontal slices and mince go quite well. No reactivity whatsoever.
- and then some celery and carrots, still not obsessing over a particular size as long as it doesn't overwhelm the rice.
Yeah, there was a cloud just then, quite a cold hue on the celery
The Moritaka worked very fine with these ingredients when came the time to mince, but had difficulty halving the carrots (push cut into a "taller" ingredient and this grind shows its weaknesses, and they were small carrots too!!), although it had no problem tip slicing these halves into quarters, nor tip slicing the celery horizontally. In the mince, I could feel some lasery potential. The Moritaka has the same prejudice than the Misono towards slicing, but is just too thick to excel as much and feel as pleasurable. It is not, however, to the point of unnerving, just disappointing.
The handling of the knife didn't bother me in the slightest; on the contrary, and much to my own surprise, I loved it. I can honestly say that, from my experience, I have no preference between Yo and Wa handles, but that having a bolster on a Yo or having a Wa handle feels much better than cheaper knives without bolster (Victorinox Rosewood). It is a light knife, the grip feels secure, my middle finger nestles well at the choil, the forward balance helped being precise when horizontally slicing each of these ingredients.
Second test was more about fluidity and speed : regular approximate slicing of everyday ingredients for a quick sauté with the added "difficulty" of managing space by leaving prepped ingredients on the board and accumulating.
Yeah sorry, I was storing the preparation away and had completely forgotten about photographing the onions. I swear all the ingredients were still on the board and I didn't have quite a lot of space to slice that second onion.
Ok so the Moritaka is no more of a tip tap mushroom chopper than the Misono, but slices them about as well as long as they are on the smaller size like these. I guess that a taller mushroom would again underline the thick grind of the knife in a bad way.
Peppers... well no difficulty slicing them, BUT the ineffective grind shows once again when cutting a quarter off the whole pepper, and in quite a bad way. Hard to follow the curve and make a good ready to be sliced piece, it wedges.
The onions... the knife actually squeaked - SQUEAKED - when I halved these onions. It had wedged in the much smaller red onion, but with these it truly squeaked. How thick can you be?
Once that done, the mincing went quite well despite the thick grind, although we're a long way from the Zwilling and the Misono, and we stand even short on the Victorinox performance. Bit of reactivity there, but nothing close to the Misono thanks to cladding, and perhaps some propriety of Aogami #2 also? Only a few slices of onions show a hint of dark coloring, and the very edge now has some of a rainbow-ish halo to it.
Sooooo... Let's wrap this up quick, I have barely 25 full minutes of use with this knife and can't tell much outside first impressions, and a grind can be rectified, although this one will show in the final note as I noted all the other ones for performance OOTB, and this one won't escape the judgment.
Pro : aesthetically pleasing, better than expected F&F, amazing handling, light and nimble
Meh : squeaking... really?
Con : awfully thick grind
Bottom line : 'nuff said!
Performance (OOTB) : 3/5
Experience : 4/5 (yeah it has suffered enough in the Performance section, let's give it the praise it deserves for wow factor and pride of ownership factor)
F&F : 3.5/5 (this is an entry level priced handmade knife, and while quite well done, it literally has tons of lovely imperfections)
Value : 2.5/5 (I debated a long time if it deserved even lower score than the Zwilling here... I honestly don't think so, and with more experience of J knives one could possibly attribute it a higher value score - but I can only judge from my own inexperience and the highest price tag I've paid yet. It also has rough competition in its price range)
Overall : 6.5/10
