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Product Name: | SHI BA ZI ZUO Chef Knife Chinese Vegetable Cleaver for Kitchen Superior Class 7-inch Stainless Steel Knife with Ergonomic Design Comfortable Wooden Handle |
Manufacturer: | YANGJIANG SHIBAZI KNIVES AND SCISSORS PRODUCTIONS CO., LTD |
Model Number: | F214-2 |
Product SKU: | B06XRRGCVY |
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https://www.amazon.com/Mercer-Cut...279&sr=1-4
But I would pay $20 dollars more to get the US made Dexter 8" Chinese Chief knife.
https://www.amazon.com/Dexter-Out...149&sr=1-6
They're meant as all around beaters, which includes the usual usage as a pan scraper. This is a cheap stainless steel, so it's definitely soft enough to use and abuse.
If you go into higher end chuka-bocho cleavers that use higher end steels and super steels, which are hardened to 60+ HRC, and tend to have much narrower blade profiles, you'll run into issues with scraping. Though those also tend to have the less common rounded belly, which might be appealing to some, and unappealing to others.
That being said, a scraper is 10 bucks and if you decide to get more into knives, it's annoying to unlearn the habit of scraping your board with knives.
Some people enjoy using cheap knives like Shi Ba Zi, but I'd rather jump to the next price point. CCK has gotten massively inflated in price, but Chopper King is from Taiwan and has pretty good stuff, and in better steels as well. They're on CKTG.
I'm Chinese and I taught myself how to cook on a CCK, and they're fun to use, but I only paid ~$35 back then. For ~$70 I tend to recommend Japanese knives (ex: nakiri) instead. The Chinese cleavers are really fun as beaters, but they are heavy (even though you can use the weight of the cleaver to chop) and I found it fatiguing in longer sessions. They're also a bit more annoying to learn to use for more delicate tasks and the large size makes them harder to store.
CCK was great at its old price point of ~$30-50 but it's double that now and at that price, it falls short in terms of fit and finish vs other options at that price. It doesn't have any frills, fit and finish is meh, the steel is just ok, and the food release is terrible. Not dealbreakers at the original price point, but at the new going price, I find it a lot less forgivable.
I mostly just pull this out for novelty, or leave it at my parent's to use when I visit. My mom likes to take it out to cut napa cabbage (the Chinese ingredient it's most suited for) and other large produce, like watermelons.
Though honestly, even for that, there are cheaper options that have more novelty value; the Chinese cleavers aren't that long so it can get annoying with larger melons. Grab a Tojiro Big Almighty Chopper for around ~$40-50 off eBay if you want a huge novelty knife for those occasions. It's amazing for cutting and serving cake because of the length and the tall height, plus the party fun of bringing it out.
As for knife profiles, if you just want an all around chef's knife with a similarly flat belly for the push cut profile, you can look into nakiri's and santoku's. Santoku is quite versatile, though the gyuto is better if you like to rock chop.
these type of Chinese knives are design and gear toward housewives or standard Chinese restaurants where they use the same knives to cut, chop, slice, smash, mince everything, so you don't have to spent two hours to cook and then wash ten knives for one dinner.
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Chinese ally's
If you want to spend around $40 and are ok with Japanese knives, Tojiro's basic line is excellent. The steel is better (VG10 stainless steel) and so is the overall quality. I'd recommend a nakiri or a santoku, as they are taller and flatter, like a Chinese cleaver.
If you want to jump up to the $60-80 price point for Chinese cleavers, go with Chopper King. Better quality steels and quality consistency than CCK for the same price or cheaper. I would get it in VG10 or AUS10 stainless steels. If you're ok with non-stainless, you can grab the other ones for cheaper, as they are not stainless steels. https://www.chefknivest
Beyond that, there's mostly just the Japanese options (chuka bocho) that tend to be more rounded and more expensive, where the sky's the limit in terms of price.
Aside from those, there are less common knife shapes, like https://lamsonproducts.
TL;DR if you're willing to spend more, get a Chopper King if you want a Chinese cleaver, or get a Tojiro A-1 Basic nakiri or Santoku if you're ok with something else.
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They're meant as all around beaters, which includes the usual usage as a pan scraper. This is a cheap stainless steel, so it's definitely soft enough to use and abuse.
If you go into higher end chuka-bocho cleavers that use higher end steels and super steels, which are hardened to 60+ HRC, and tend to have much narrower blade profiles, you'll run into issues with scraping. Though those also tend to have the less common rounded belly, which might be appealing to some, and unappealing to others.
That being said, a scraper is 10 bucks and if you decide to get more into knives, it's annoying to unlearn the habit of scraping your board with knives.
Some people enjoy using cheap knives like Shi Ba Zi, but I'd rather jump to the next price point. CCK has gotten massively inflated in price, but Chopper King is from Taiwan and has pretty good stuff, and in better steels as well. They're on CKTG.
I'm Chinese and I taught myself how to cook on a CCK, and they're fun to use, but I only paid ~$35 back then. For ~$70 I tend to recommend Japanese knives (ex: nakiri) instead. The Chinese cleavers are really fun as beaters, but they are heavy (even though you can use the weight of the cleaver to chop) and I found it fatiguing in longer sessions. They're also a bit more annoying to learn to use for more delicate tasks and the large size makes them harder to store.
CCK was great at its old price point of ~$30-50 but it's double that now and at that price, it falls short in terms of fit and finish vs other options at that price. It doesn't have any frills, fit and finish is meh, the steel is just ok, and the food release is terrible. Not dealbreakers at the original price point, but at the new going price, I find it a lot less forgivable.
I mostly just pull this out for novelty, or leave it at my parent's to use when I visit. My mom likes to take it out to cut napa cabbage (the Chinese ingredient it's most suited for) and other large produce, like watermelons.
Though honestly, even for that, there are cheaper options that have more novelty value; the Chinese cleavers aren't that long so it can get annoying with larger melons. Grab a Tojiro Big Almighty Chopper for around ~$40-50 off eBay if you want a huge novelty knife for those occasions. It's amazing for cutting and serving cake because of the length and the tall height, plus the party fun of bringing it out.
As for knife profiles, if you just want an all around chef's knife with a similarly flat belly for the push cut profile, you can look into nakiri's and santoku's. Santoku is quite versatile, though the gyuto is better if you like to rock chop.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005HE8F8S/?coliid=IW93NWI9XUQTT&colid=3EXC7LXAAYE3F&ref_=list_c_wl_gv_ov_... [amazon.com]
I have a couple of their knives and they're significantly better than stamped Mercer knives and better than a Global knockoff I bought from Ikea. The only other knife I can compare it to is a Wusthof Classic, but that's well over 5x the price.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005HE8F8S/?coliid=IW93NWI9XUQTT&colid=3EXC7LXAAYE3F&ref_=list_c_wl_gv_ov_... [amazon.com]
I have a couple of their knives and they're significantly better than stamped Mercer knives and better than a Global knockoff I bought from Ikea. The only other knife I can compare it to is a Wusthof Classic, but that's well over 5x the price.
Wusthof Classic is also not a flattering comparison for a Chinese cleaver considering that wusthof and most western styles aim at softer, thicker knives and Asian aims for thinner slicers/choppers. The Wusthofs are good but I'm also going to guess that most people don't want to deal with the fact that you have to file down the bolster to sharpen the knife after a while, since it runs all the way to the edge.
Not saying the Shi Ba Zi is bad by any means, nor did I say that in my post, I just compared it to other options at different price points and gave reason as to why they might offer desired performance/benefits for users. It's good for the price, but I provided reasoning as to why I went to next price point and up, which I think is valid for the performance/quality increase.
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