SHI BA ZI ZUO 8-inch Professional Cleaver - Stainless Steel Meat & Vegetable Knife with Non-stick Finish and Anti-slip Wooden Handle

I absolutely love this knife. I mostly cook Asian food, and saw a lot of professional Asian chefs using this type of knife. I wasn't sure if I would like it, so I bought a cheap generic Chinese vegetable cleaver from the supermarket for about $10... used it for 2 years and fell in love. It's the optimal knife for Asian food and basically any cuisine. It makes prep go by quickly and is even enjoyable. The biggest function though is its use as a bench scraper. Made my kitchen skills so much more efficient. I mostly chop vegetables and meat (no bones) and the Chinese style cleaver makes short work of it.While that cheap knife served me well and is still great today, I found that it didnt retain a sharp edge very well. Also the handle was cheap. So I did some research and came across this brand - still affordable but used in both Chinese professional and home kitchens everywhere. So I bought it and it came in a nice box. Extremely sharp. I've been using it for about a month now and it's still super sharp. I've only had to hone it once so far. We'll see how long it can go without needing to be sharpened by my whetstone. Well worth the money. I love it. The handle feels good quality and sturdy.

Absolutely a fantastic knife. So nice to cut and slice with precision and ease. Ordering one as a gift.

We'll start off by saying this knife isn't perfect, but it is the absolute closest thing to perfect compared to the almost thirty other cai dao I've used. It's either this or a Dexter Russell 8 inch Chinese Chef's Knife.PROS:- Fantastic edge profile that is very slightly curved. There is a 15 degeee secondary bevel and a thin grind behind the edge. When the shallow angle is combined with a hard core steel, it makes for a great balance of slicing/push cutting performance and durability. It doesn't have the odd curvature and inconsistent edge finish that can show up on Dexter Russell Chinese chef's knives.- Factory edge is relatively sharp and not over polished, resulting in a good relatively long lasting edge. Seems like it was finished at 1000 grit.- Fit and finish is on par with high quality german knives and nice japanese knives. Grinds are even and the deeply engraved markings are clean.- Barrell handle is well made and comfortable.-Required the least modification to meet my standards for a knife.CONS- The spine of the knife and choi have not been rounded over, so the coarse sanded finish on the main body of the knife and beautifully clean edges can dig into your fingers when you work, making it hard to use for long periods of time. The fix is really simple: take some 400 grit, 600 grit, and 100 grit sandpaper to round off the sharp edges. It takes 15 minutes and now you can use the knife for a full 12 hour work day without issue. A Dexter Russell 8" Chinese Chef Knife would not have this issue as all the relevant areas are rounded off making it usable straight out of the box.- The knife gets thicker faster the further you get from the cutting edge compared to a Dexter Russell 8" Chinese Chef Knife, and the blade stays thin much further toward the spine. This means this knife will require thinning much sooner than a Dexter Russell.

I got this knife because I wanted a blade that could be used to cut anything I wanted, and this one does the job. Here are my thoughts after using it for a few months.Pros:- Very sharp out of box.- Easy to sharpen. Just a few passes on my Spyderco Ceramic Medium stone works well.- It has a large flat, used for picking up chopped/diced vegies and meat.- caftmanship is better than anything I've ever used before in the kitchen- Beautiful design, I like the rectangle shape and the wood handle.Cons:- If you hold the knife blade with your thumb and index finger, the vertical choil digs into the middle finger, and it makes the knife a bit painful to use. I might use a dremel later to round the edge a bit. I did get used to it though, after a few weeks of use. Not a big deal.- it's not full tang, it's just a wire that goes through and is bent at the end. I knew this before I bought it.Maintenance:- I make sure I wash it thoroughly and dry it completely, then I put it back in the box it came in. Ready for use for the next day. I do the same thing with my cast iron skillet and carbon steel wok. Maintenance is important for everything you want to keep in good shape.Conclusion:Get this knife if you want a very sharp all-in-one blade. You probably won't be disappointed.