imarku Chef Knife - 8 Inch Home Essentials Sharp Kitchen knife HC Steel Japanese Knife Paring knife, Birthday Gifts for Women/Men, Gifts for Mom/Dad, Kitchen Gadgets with Premium Gift Box

It is a very nice knife.The handle is fully wrapped where you can not see the tang, but I am rather certain it is a full tang.It is light and well balanced, in a thinner Japanese style. I tend to prefer German style knives for their wait and balance and where the handle meets the tang, but this is very nice and will get good use in my kitchen.I don't know that I would the $99 price tag, that seems a bit steep, but definitely at least worth $50

At first, I didn't think this knife would really do the job compared to my other bread knife that I got from the county fair many years ago. My old bread knife is over 15 years old but still holds up amazing and I doubted anything could match it. But I wanted to try a new knife, one that had more heft and would be able to cut the bottom crust of homemade sourdough bread.One of the best ways to keep sourdough bread from being hard on the bottom crust is to line the bake pan/ Dutch oven with several layers of parchment that have been sprinkled with corn flour between the layers. This assures that my sourdough bread will come out light and not burned on the bottom. That being said, these knives are sometimes extremely challenged to cut through the bottom crust. My old knife is easily able to cut through the top crust of the bread. Anyone who makes sourdough bread knows that the top crust can be pretty hard, but it's designed that way with a soft and wonderful crumb on the inside.With this new knife, the first cut into the bread has to be very careful. You have to start off gently and very light. I made the mistake of kind of hitting it a bit too fast and hard and the knife skipped off of the bread and cut my finger.I learned my lesson from that one. But I went to cut another piece and cut different finger deeper.Then I try to third time and cut another finger down to the bone. Eventually realized I needed to back off and make the first few cutting motions as delicate as possible. Once I got the knack of it, I was able to work with the knife much easier.It has some decent heft and made cutting through the crust at the bottom much easier and with much less effort. My old knife took four or five draws in order to cut the crust. This new knife took about two draws across the bottom and it was cut all the way. So yes it worked really good for me!I could have avoided cutting my fingers if I had not pressed so hard on the knife expecting it to make those initial cuts through the bread. I realized that it has to be approached very slowly at first and once it makes those first half inch slits on the top crust, Then you can simply go gently through the rest of the bread until you hit the bottom crust. On the bottom crust you can hit it a little more aggressively.It's surprised me that this knife was as good as it was. I didn't expect it to be as good as it was and I was ready to wrap it up and send it back until I realized it was a pretty good knife and is somewhat better than my older one, even though my older one is amazing still!I think for the price it is a decent knife. It comes with two plastic nibs to cover the tip point and the rear corner of the blade. I do not find these things useful or all that protective because they just fall off. The box is elegant and is great for storing.One thing I didn't like about the knife was that once I cut the first loaf, the blade seem to already have linear scratches on it! So I don't know if it's because the metal is softer, or the bread cut through the protective coating if there is one. Maybe it's just part of breaking in a knife.I would give it 4.5 stars But I rated it as five stars because you can't do 4.5.

Great knives are known to be used in great kitchens.This knife is easy to handle and large enough for just about any kitchen use.It has a good handle and grip to keep your hands safe while using it.

Update: be sure to dry this after washing. If your water is a tad on the hard side and you leave the knife to air dry, you will end up with water spots on the blade. Attesting to the original sharpness of this knife...I recently bought a cooked rack of baby back ribs, which were very tender. After putting them in the refrigerator overnight, I took them out to cut into individual ribs. This knife went through them like it was cutting soft butter.This knife is very sharp. I ran multiple tests and BESS rating of 100 is a good average of the scores I got. This level of sharpness is right in line with some higher end kitchen knives I have been testing.The metal used for this knife is good, but has its drawbacks as well. It is not great at retaining an edge, but is also easy to sharpen. The hardness rating of 56 to 58 is soft enough so it is not brittle. The hardness scores at 60 and above result in more brittle edges and it is easy for them to chip. As a result, those knives generally should not be used around bones and other hard food items. This blade does not have that issue, and that makes it a very versatile blade.I have my doubts about this being a true single bevel knife. I have no experience with them, but did a little research and the bevel of the edge itself should be only on one side. This knife has a slight bevel on the back side. I have no idea the angle of that, and it is probably pretty small. However, it is something to be aware of when sharpening. Not all knife sharpeners will work with this blade. If it cuts both edges at the same time, you will quickly turn this into a dual bevel knife.A double bevel knife with an edge of 13 degrees, actually has a cutting angle of 26 degrees. The 13 degrees is the angle of each side. For a single bevel knife, there is only one bevel, so a 13 degree knife will have a cutting angle of 13 degrees. That is much sharper. These are often used more for thin slicing and also dicing foods. At the same time, they work just fine with all other cutting as well.This knife has some good weight to it. The handle is just a tad heavier than the blade, so it will not perfectly balance on my finger. However, it is pretty darn close. This is fairly easy to work with and with proper care (never ever put in the dishwasher), it should last quite a while.

It was a gift and appeared to be received well.

Beautiful to look at and beautiful to hold. This 8" Chef's knife is an excellent addition to my other kitchen knives. The handle is of perfect length for my grip and feels solid and secure in my hand. The design of how the handle meets the blade provides a spot where one's thumb has a place to rest and provide the pressure to support a stable manipulation of the blade. No question, this is a sharp blade which makes the cutting of a variety of foods, effortless.

Really nice blade and design. This knife is clearly designed to be used with proper technique, which is nice. I've had some issues with common household chef's knives that are not designed to be compatible with good technique, and while I'm no chef, I do want to use proper technique for stability and safety. My only complaint is that the handle seems to dry out easily, which is a little concerning.