Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

Knife Advice to a Friend Working at a Sushi Bar

A friend is currently working at a local sushi joint and has plans to open his own sushi restaurant or sushi bar in the near future. He asked me for some information and advice about knives and the following is what I wrote to him earlier today. The information is not comprehensive, but if you are in the market for traditional Japanese knives, this might serve as a good introduction or primer for you…

I am presuming that you will want traditional Japanese knives for use at the sushi bar, and will limit the following information to just traditional single-bevel knives and will not talk about double-bevel knives. I am speaking as an amateur who knows something about the equipment, but I do not presume to know what the demands are like on the line. What follows is what I know from my own reading, and my own use in a home (or office!) environment. Please excuse me if I’m going over information that you already know – I just want to make sure I cover everything that might be helpful.

You’ve got 3 primary knives that you’ll want to have:

1. usuba for veggies
2. deba for fish butchering & fileting
3. yanagi for slicing

You could get a specialized knife for mukimono, the artful preparation of fruit & veggie garnishes, but I think you can probably make do without one. In all 3 cases, you will need to decide:

1. What length will serve you best
2. What steel you want for the cutting edge

With regards to length, that comes down to personal preference and your workspace limitations. I think you probably know what lengths you like by now from your own use and experience. For steel… well, you will need to choose between stainless and carbon. Stainless is the lower-maintenance option, but (a) will not hold as sharp an edge as carbon, and (b) likely takes more effort to sharpen.  Carbon will take a much finer edge, but will oxidize easily. That means you’ll need to make sure you have a towel at the counter with you to wipe down the blade every so often. That will help to avoid rusting, but the blade will still turn different colors through use – different shades of grey, blue and purple. If you opt for stainless steel, your advantages are:

• it will always be shiny
• you can let it sit for a while before wiping it down in case things get too busy during service (but it only takes 3 seconds to wipe down the blade on both sides)
• it may hold a decent edge between sharpening or honing for a longer time than carbon

For high-quality stainless, you are looking at either ginsanko or proprietary they-will-not-tell-you-what-it-is steels (such as from Suisin`s INOX… INOX = inoxidizable = stainless). However, you will pay more $$ for stainless steel while getting less performance (performance in this case = sharper edge & easier to sharpen)

For carbon steel, you have more choices:

• unnamed carbon steel, which is probably tool steel
• unnamed proprietary carbon steel
• unnamed Hitachi carbon steel, which is most likely Hitachi yellow
• shirogami or shiro-ko (white)
• aogami or ao-ko (blue)
• aogami super (AS or blue super)

To think of this simply, you could say that you have better steel as you go from top to bottom. However, that is not entirely correct. They are all tradeoffs, and which is best depends on what you want most.

Tool steel is hard, hard stuff. It is designed for carpenters working on wood. It is cheaper, but may not hold as sharp an edge and will be a lot of effort to sharpen. Proprietary carbon steels are not at all common, and you will only find them with some high-end makers such as Shigefusa. In the case of Shigefusa, the steel is apparently very very good steel – holds an incredibly sharp edge, and is easy to sharpen, but it is very reactive and oxidizes very easily.

The other carbon steels on the list are all from Hitachi and are the most common high-quality carbon steels you will find on the market. As we discussed in the kitchen, the differences between them are trade-offs. Yellow is a step above tool steel. It has been refined more than tool steel with impurities taken out, which means it will hold a better edge. Yellow steel is cheap by comparison, and you will generally only find this on more economy-grade carbon knives that still want to be able to say they are using Hitachi steel. White, Blue, and Super Blue are your standards, particularly White and Blue. Super Blue is hard to come by. Not many makers will use AS because it is, apparently, hard to work with. Its main benefit over shirogami (white) and regular aogami (blue) is that it is tougher and will hold its edge longer.

As we discussed in the kitchen, many people will choose aogami (blue) over shirogami (white). You will pay more $ for aogami, and what you get in return is an edge that is a little tougher than shirogami and which is a little less reactive than shirogami. In my experience, aogami is a fine steel to use.

Shirogami (white) will give you the sharpest edge of all the carbon steels (except *possibly* some proprietary steels like Shigefusa, but I have no experience with that). It is also easy to sharpen to a super-fine edge. My recommendation is to find something made with shirogami. It`s probably your best bet in terms of performance for your money.

In terms of construction, we have 3 main levels to choose from. I will not include here any discussion about cosmetics like damascus (wavy-line pattern) or fancy woods used in the handles. Those cost a lot and are purely for looks and personal pleasure, not for performance.

• kasumi
• honkasumi (hongasumi)
• honyaki

Kasumi blades are made using the expensive, hard steel for the cutting edge and core or back of the knife, wrapped in softer steel for support. Honkasumi blades are also multilayered, but finished to a higher level of quality. Honyaki blades are entirely made from the hard cutting edge steel, but differentially tempered to produce harder and softer regions. Hard at the edge, softer at the spine. I think kasumi is good. Honyaki are the really expensive $1000-4000 knives but they do not give you better cutting performance. They will, however, last a lot longer – but of course, you pay for that added longevity. They

are also a bit more work to sharpen.

Among makers that you may want to consider are…

Tanaka: good value for knives that perform, by knife community consensus, as well as knives costing 2x as much. I have a number of Tanaka knives – I own more of them than any other make – and I am very happy with the blades. The handles are very no-frills, but the blades are very nicely made. Good sellers for Tanaka include Metalmaster, ChefKnivestoGo, and 330mate on eBay.

Yoshihiro: from what I know of them, they are the makers behind a number of other well-known brands who rebrand them – in other words, Yoshihiro is the OEM manufacturer for other companies who sell them under their own names at higher prices. They are, by all accounts, very nice knives and I would personally by some myself if I needed more.  Your best bet for Yoshihiro is sjiecicap on eBay. I would recommend going with their kasumi line. Their kasumi line uses shirogami and their hongasumi line uses aogami. I have a usuba from their kasumi line and I think it performs very well and holds a great edge.

Those are your best bets for excellent performance at a good price. I think you`ll be happy with either Tanaka or Yoshihiro.

However, there are many other choices out there.

• Chef Knives to Go
• Japanese Knife Imports
• Paul`s Finest

These are the sellers that I recommend. Paul`s Finest is Canadian. ChefKnivesToGo and JapaneseKnifeImports are both from the US, but very good merchants. Over $200 and shipping is free from CKTG. They both ship by US Postal, which is important, because you do *not* want FedEx or UPS coming across the border.

Stay away from Takeda and Moritaka. They make excellent knives, but their knives are *all* double-bevel. That means their yanagis are not true yanagis but are actually sujihikis which do not meet your needs for sushi.

Let me know if you want me to touch upon sharpening stones. I am presuming you already have your own, but if not, I would be happy to talk a bit about them as well. They are at least as important as the knives themselves, of course!