Mcusta Zanmai「森林」鉬牛托

While I have owned cheaper Japanese knives in the past (likely made in China), this was my introduction to quality Japanese knives. I bought the 240 mm version of this knife. From the unboxing to the first use, I was greatly impressed. Quality made and out of the box sharp. I tested it on my Edge-On-Up Industrial Edge Tester PT50A and out of the box it scored consistently a 170ish rating. But the real test was in the kitchen. How well would it hold up to finely chopped onions, garlic and ginger? How well would it provide thinly sliced daikon, etc? It held up better than any of my previous cheap Japanese knives as well as my high end German made knives. I have always tried to maintain my cookware (knives especially), but have realized, both that I may not have done as well as I thought and started out with products (knives) that were not as good as what is available. This is a quality knife for the price. While I am sure it is not as good as other Gyutou lines. If you are willing to spend some money but not necessarily break the bank, you will not go wrong with the Mcusta Zanmai "Forest" Molybdenum Gyuto. I don’t know that this is considered an entry level Japanese knife but I would say if this is your first time purchasing a quality Japanese knife, this is a safe bet.

I put 15 hours on it. I prefer this knife over eight inch chef knives. It’s a beautiful knife I throughly enjoy the handle. I suspect that everyone is secretly jealous that my knife is the biggest and the sharpest out of 25 cooks. The only thing that I don’t like is that my supervisor dropped it and now the tip is bent 😿