Homi Kajiya Santoku-bocho 165mm Aogami #2

Wonderful Knife - Light, Thin, Nimble, Not Delicate!

Posted by Erik on 16th Jul 2023

I bought the nakiri and santoku at the same time. My thoughts on them are basically the same so I will leave the same review for both.

Homi-san's boxing/packaging is excellent. His presentation easily exceeds knives I've purchased for 3x or more the cost of this one. This contributes to the initial good impressions but also suggest that if this level of thought has been put into the packaging, then it is quite likely it has been into the blades as well. And in my opinion, that is definitely true.

Now, my only critique is that Homi-san uses a thick coat of lacquer. Lacquer is common on carbon steel Japanese knives and many people leave it on their blades. If you're one of them, then know your blade is well protected. But, if you're like me and prefer to remove the lacquer, just be prepared to use a little elbow grease. I went with lacquer thinner and steel wool. On the up side of this though is that Homi-san's kurouchi finish is quite resilient!

But, once that was dealt with it was off to the races! Michael mentions the "scallop" grind and a curiosity if it helps food release. I'm going to go with a maybe. It is present on both knives, although shallower on the nakiri but it sits a good distance from the edge. Neither knife has bad food release and maybe the scallop is lending to that but I'm not convinced of it. But it certainly doesn't hurt and definitely lends to the overall nimble feel of the blades.

As I said in the title, these knives are light but not delicate. They slice very well and just feel great in the hand and on the board. These are the kind of knives I like for daily drivers: Excellent performance without needing to be babied. Homi-san's cladding does not appear to be very reactive either so that just contributes to their robustness. The knives are ground to a near zero edge that out of the box is quite nice but also very easy to brighten up and maintain.

The finish is what you should expect for tools of this nature. There is nothing egregious but the spine and choil could use a little softening. I've had much more expensive knives by well-known makers who are carried at many of the popular vendors that exhibit the same level of finish in this regard.

Overall, these are slicey, good performing knives that I'm quite pleased with. I think these are a very nice value that will provide years of excellent service.

Now, if we can just talk Homi-san into making some 180's... :)