How to choose a chef knife - Chef's knife vs Japanese and Chinese chef knife

Hey ChefPanko,
great reviews and tips first of all :)


I am currently looking for a "Chinese Cleaver" style like knife, mainly for slicing, less for chopping bones though. I plan to use it as a workhorse in the kitchen, so it should withstand scraping up vegetables, being honed on a steel etc . Do you have any recommendations for me? My current price range would be between 30 - 100 €/$. I looked on aliexpress at the ones from Xinzou, but I'm uncertain if they fit the workstyle with their hardness of 60 HRC and above.


Greetings from Germany and with best regards!

Very thorough, thanks!

Hey! I just ordered two Grandsharp Damscus knives, a 9.8 Kiritsuke and 9.7 Slicing Knife, on top of the same type of filleting knife that should arrive this week. I'm going to use them on diferent slaughtering projects a 10 kilo rabbit, 3 home grown roosters at about 7-8 kilos, a young ram at probabil 25 kilos, modern meat specialised french pietrain boar at 170-180 kilos and a primitive lard romanian Mangalita sow at 100kilos. I'm very excited about the projects. I would love if you can make a video about Vg10, Damascus and how you should maintain this type of metal.
Thank you!
PS: Sorry for the long ramble, but your awesome chanel inspired me to buy these knives and start these projects. Had to say it!

I’m looking for an all purpose knife. One that can go through meat,bones,veggies and fruit but one that doesn’t require a whole lot of maintenance. What would you recommend? Thanks

Hi Chef Panko! Thank you for the video! It's very helpful. I am looking to buy a all rounder Chinese knifes for home cooking. Do you have a recommendation what Shi Ba Zi model i should get? Thanks!

What are the differences between a Chinese all purpose cleaver such as an 8" Dexter Russell or ShiBaZi and a Japanese vegetable cleaver like the 7" Kyotu Samurai? Are they totally different?

Hi ! Why do you say that the fingertip is the worst grip ??

I would say serious home chefs are better off with carbon steel Japanese knives. They don't have the time constraints of professional chefs, so wiping down the blade frequently is not an issue and sharpening is generally far easier. Bearing in mind that most carbon blades are stainless clad anyway, maintenance is really not a problem. Add to that the ease of cutting and the much long edge retention, especially when you are getting up to the higher HRC values and the benefits far outweigh the downsides. Obviously there are stainless, semi-stainless and powder steels that can be heat treated to similar hardness, but they are almost always harder to sharpen.

There are a lot of cleavers now with very curved profiles, so they can be used for rocking, although I don't think they are ideal, because they are not weighted properly for rocking. That said, for anyone who doesn't use a rocking motion much, a cleaver is a perfectly acceptable tool for western cuisine and probably the most versatile knife for any chef.

I wouldn't really recommend a western knife for any serious home chef. They have slight ease of maintenance by being all stainless and more robust, but they will need sharpening more frequently, will be more difficult to sharpen and won't perform as well. I can understand professional chefs using them in certain busy environments, where they don't have time to keep swapping knives or to care for their knives during use, but otherwise, their appeal is limited. Also for home users who just aren't that serious about cooking, they may be the best option, although the fact that their edge retention is worse and that this sort of user is unlikely to sharpen their knives is not a good combination.

I'm a very amateur cook with no formal, or informal, training. I switch gripping styles all the time. However, there are lots of basic safety and efficiency techniques that are very important fundamentals. I think amateur chefs should do what's comfortable and evolve with their skills while keeping those basic methods in mind...but what do I know...other than that was another good video. Great job C.P.

I have some oval and D shaped handles but no octagonal. I kind of assumed the gripping styles were very similar. You said you liked octagonal, but not oval. Why is that?

Excellent video as always.

Which cutting styles are so particular to the Chinese cuisine that it "requires" the chinese all-purpose cleaver? Or asking the other way round: which Chinese cuisine cuts can you not do with a Japanese or European chef's knife?

Is a gyuto knife good for cutting partially frozen pork meat before putting it in the meat grinding to make sausages? Personally I hate the rocking motion of western chef knives so am looking for alternatives

How the hell did I search Giggle for knives for a year and just now find this? Very informative video. I'm shocked it doesn't have more views. Thank you.

Very informative, thanks! Where do you get your knife blade covers? Do you recommend any particular brand?

Liked and subscribed. Just want to say that your channel and content are super underrated. They deserve more views so I hope you can continue to produce more videos and that your channel will grow to a subscription base it deserves.

Also, would love to see your take on the Kramer Zwilling Knives (Meiji etc).

🇰🇷🇺🇲Japanese knife is very good👍👍👍

USE

Let's say you worked at a fusion style restaurant, offering Asian-style and European dishes. Would you go for one all-purpose knife, or would you keep several different ones and switch depending on what food needs to be cut?

I love the extensive info and wide range you cover. Also, the fact that you flash the shibatas all the time gives you extra points for me.
Edit: I also despise globals.

Dutch?

Is ridiculous to clean Global knife's handle with toothpick 😅. You can use sponge, brush or toothbrush everytime you clean your knife. Using toothpick to pickup something on the handle dots one by one its just nonsense.

I use Globak knife for 13 years and never have a problem or dirty handle. Maybe if you habe dirty handle something is wrong with that knife users. Like Japanese wa handle also food stuck at the tang of the handle much worse. But as a professional we need to clean them every time after we use the knife

Great information, new subscriber 👍

Hi, quite an informative video.
Just a point of correction, the Chinese knife you have is not a Chinese chef's knife. Chinese broad knives can be classified into 3 types: slicing / chef's knife (片刀), bone cleaver (斩骨刀), and the mixed-purpose knife (文武刀) (which is what you have in your video).
Chinese restaurant chefs tend to use the slicing / chef's knife because it's suited for delicate slicing and fine control. The whole blade is used. They swap this with the cleaver as and when necessary.
The mixed-purpose knife is a combination of a slicing blade at the top, and a bone cleaver at the bottom. It's more of something used by people who want convenience over knifework quality (like a housewife or a street food stall cook).

Thanks for all the videos, the do help a lot.

I just bought myself first premium class Japanese knife. And returned it next day. Couldn't get rid of the feeling, that my old 10$ chef knife is way more comfortable. Now I am watching all Your videos, trying to figure out, what I need. What shape, what handle, what steel. And it's not what I thought of at the beginning.

What about onions 🧅

I use if a lot for onions red onions is hard job witch one is better

[CC] English Closed Caption has been added make sure to turn it on if you have trouble understanding my pronunciations.

If you have any questions leave them behind in the comments section below.
What you should know before buying any knives is to know what kind of cuisine you want to cover and what your primary gripping style is.
I can recommend knives with a 56 to 58 HRC to anyone from home cooks, culinary students and professional cooks/chefs.
All other knives with an HRC of 60+ are dependent on what you want to do with it. They will chip and break if not used properly (not suitable for going trough bones or frozen food).
A separate video about Japanese knives will follow including the Japanese styled knives made in china vs Japanese knives made in Japan.
I also got in contact with 3 Japanese knife makers and asked a lot of questions some answers were lost due to the language barrier.
But I found something interesting and that is that they all don't recommend Bamboo cutting boards and diamond or any other harsh honing rod.
A video about the cutting boards will be made too.
Feel free to suggest something that you want to see covered about knives, cutting board, honing rods, whetstones, natural stones, diamond stones.