Ikenami Hamono Soba-kiri Noodle Knife 270mm

Dashi soup may be the key to success for any noodle establishment but you get nowhere without the noodles, and making them is an art. Cutting the men calls for a thin blade and straight edge, technique and a very large cutting board.

The soba-kiri-bocho is not useful unless you are cutting noodles; don't imagine this knife will function as any sort of cleaver. But making noodles at home is fun and satisfying and if you're serious about it this knife will take your noodle fabrication to the next level. Treat the blade with care - noodles on wooden board only - and it will rarely require sharpening.

That's a good thing. In terms of steel these knives are easy to sharpen, in terms of maintaining the perfectly straight cutting edge, possibly not. 

(A quick note about the video links above. The featured chef is soba master Kunihiro Takahashi, whose Oki-na-Daruma restaurants now number thirty nine locations in Japan and one in Paris. More information in Japanese here.)