If you ever get a chance to handle one, please do. The level of craftsmanship and attention to details on it are immaculate. Admittedly, I don’t use it much, but it keeps my family away from my stuff.
Re: Almost all my kitchen knives are Japanese (made or style) and I would not change any of them for a chef's or Gyuto knife.
Can you elaborate on what you are using as your main chef’s knife type knife?
Well looker, I generally don't like talking about knives (can you tell?), but I will force myself to do that, just this once...
I cook everyday. My main everyday kitchen knives are not my best, but they're the ones I don't mind using daily, and abusing sometimes. They're a japanese santoku (6.75") and an ai-deba (thinner spined deba, 6.5") with plain, but excellent stainless steel, and traditional plain wood handles, with an ajikiri (4") for smaller tasks. These I picked up in a little shop (along with several others) while living in London, and have no idea from what brand or maker they might be. The ai-deba is used for poultry, and the santoku for most everything else. They came in extemely plain cardboard boxes, with "Stainless Steel Made in Japan" and Japanese characters engraved on the blade of the Santoku and the same Japanese characters on the ai-deba and ajikiri. These are probably the most basic utilitarian knives in Japan, but they're all excellent cutters. The Japanese characters engraved on both probably mean something like "These are cheap knives but you'll enjoy them"... They must have a high carbon content since they're not totally stainless.
I alternate this trio with a set of Henckels Santokus (Five Star - Friodur, 7"; Vier Stern - Friodur, 7"; Professional S, 5.5") and parers (Twin Signature - Friodur, 3"; Forged Premio, 3"), which are all very solid performers in daily kitchen work.
For heavy vegetable chopping when I need large amounts for a big dinner, I will use a chukabocho (Chinese cleaver,7") that I picked up in a stand in Borough Market, but has the same Japanese characters engraved as my daily use knives. This has a round wood dark-stained handle, very comfortable, and it is an amazing chopper. It can go through lots of vegetables with far less effort than the Santoku. I consider it too big for casual everyday kitchen use, so I use the santoku for daily veggie duty.
A Kushenprofi Osaka brand Nakiri (X30Cr13, 6.5") that I also bought in London is the ultimate blade for vegetable work, but it's a better grade of knife with western style handle, and I save it for occasional use, paired with a Damascus Santoku that was a gift, and is my ultimate kitchen knife, with full tang, rosewood handle and decorative rivets. I've no idea on maker or specs for this one since the wooden box and enclosed card are all in Japanese.
Beside these, I have a couple of Chroma Haiku Yanagiba (Molybdenum Vanadium, 10.75" and 8.25") with single grind blades that are very competent slicers, but these spend a lot of time in the knife case (Shun), since they're best applied to specialized slicing, which I don't do often.
An Al Mar Ultra-Chef Santoku (VG-10, 33 layer Damascus hardened to 60-72 Rockwell on "C" scale, 7") was lent to a professional chef friend, and it has not been returned. Never do this; I will never do it again.
