SHI BA ZI ZUO 7 Inches Stainless Steel Meat and Vegetable Cleaver Knife with Ergonomic and Sturdy Wooden Handle

Awesome Chinese chefs knife! Have had it for 5+ years and bought more for others. Amazing stainless steel that is extremely easy to sharpen yet high hardness holds the edge for a long time. The sharpening effort to edge durability is the best among my knives. It's easy to get it hair popping sharp, but best part is it also stays in the effective sharpness far longer than others that drastically taper off. Compared to my $400 (back then) Takeda Chinese cleaver, I use this way more often and like it better. It has proper weight and balance for a Chinese knife that helps in cutting, unlike the Takeda which is just a gyuto/western-knife balance in a rectangular shape. The handle is also properly shaped vs the cool-but-in-your-way Japanese octagon handle. The blue-paper (not stainless) and AEB-L knives I own do perform well, but they're a pain to sharpen vs this, and they don't really hold the 90%+ sharpness edge any longer. Get this Shibazi 9-inch or 8-inch professional version if you're looking for a Chinese chefs knife. This is better steel than all the usual models.

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.

This thing is a beast. Holds an edge, has great weight, feels great in the hand, but also cuts through veggies very nicely. I got this specifically because of how convenient it is for scooping up chopped ingredients, but it has also just become a favorite knife all around.

I've long wanted a Chinese cleaver, ever since watching Martin Yan on the famous "Yan Can Cook!" TV show that appeared all across American public television when I was a kid. His knife skills are insane! And he almost always used a cleaver. In the back of my mind, I always knew that there would be a day when I would own a cleaver too. I'm a knife nerd, and own almost fifty different kitchen knives off all types and kinds, made in various countries: Spain, Portugal, USA, Germany, Japan, France, Switzerland and even one made in Brazil. But one knife making country was missing from my collection: CHINA. So when I decided it was time to buy a genuine Chinese cleaver, I wanted one made in China. Since there are tons of Chinese made knifes on Amazon, that seemed like the place to start my search. But I did NOT want a Chinese knife from an American based importer, so Mercer, Dalstrong, Zelite, Kessaku and Nexus were disqualified immediately, along with all similar types of brands. Not that any of the for-mentioned brands make bad knives, it's just that I wanted a Chinese cleaver, made by a Chinese company, that were proudly selling Chinese made knives. So pulling up all the listings for "chinese cleaver" on Amazon.com, I finally found a company that met my criteria: SHI BA ZI ZOU, a Chinese company happily selling their Chinese made knifes to American customers via Amazon.com I have a knife block with a 3.5" (89mm) slot for a cleaver, so that was my limiting factor in choosing a blade--no wider than that. Looking at the various offerings from SHI BA ZI ZOU, I found two cleavers right away that really appealed to me: the 9" F208-1, and the 8" F208-2, but only the 8" would fit in my knife block, so that's what I ended up buying. I've never anxiously awaited the arrival of a knife so much as this one, and it didn't disappoint. It's a very traditional cleaver, with a "beehive" wooden handle, full tang, and a very plain, BIG, rectangular blade of made of heavy gauge Chinese stainless steel. It's a cinch to use with the traditional pinch grip, and is quite the workhorse. The knife came in a very nice brown cardboard box, very suitable for gift giving, and actually much nicer than any box that my $$$ Japanese or German knives have come in. All the lettering and packaging is in Chinese characters. Right out of the box, the blade was SUPER SHARP. The craftsmanship was also extremely nice for the pricepoint. SHI BA ZI ZOU uses a san mai type blade construction, with hard 80Cr13 high-carbon steel on in the middle, sandwiched by softer 10Cr17 steel. You can actually see a Yaxell Mon-like "wavy line" where the two steels come together near the blade edge. The SHI BA ZI ZOU Chinese characters are deeply etched into the blade, and there is also a very nicely done bit of laser marking with the company's web site emblazoned right on the blade. The handle is rosewood, and the strange beehive shape is extremely comfortable to hold, and surprisingly non-slip. As soon as I started using this beast, I was in love! The knife is HEAVY, weighing in at heft 335g, which is a lot more than my favorite Japanese knife, a Shun Classic 7" Santoku that is a mere 205g. But I really like the extra heft, and it makes prep work almost too easy. The spine is just 2mm thick, but the blade is super stiff and hard, no flex at all. It can handle, with ease, any fruit or vegetable you can throw at it, as well as any protein. But it's not a meat cleaver, and it is NOT to be used to hack through thick bones, though it can go through chicken bones with great ease. But the most amazing thing about using a Chinese cleaver rather than a typical chef's knife or guyoto, is that they are surprisingly safe. The giant blade is hard to miss, and there's plenty of room to press your knuckles against the blade in the typical claw grip fashion. Lots of blade to pinch as well, and it's shocking what kind of control you can get with this thing. If you're skilled enough, no need for a mandolin anymore. The blade has an 12°-15° degree double bevel, with a very nice taper--looks like something Global would make! It just cuts with the greatest of ease and is an absolute joy to use. Though this knife will prep food for any cuisine, I find myself making more Asian dishes to find excuses to use the knife more often. This knife is a true workhorse, it's not the type of knife you are going to post photos of on Instagram, you just take it out of the box, and start putting it to work immediately. So far I've been maintaining it with just a F. Dick sharpening steel and a leather strop; haven't needed to put it on a stone yet. Might be a while... Since getting this knife, all my other knifes just sit in their block, ignored and unused. Other than my favorite pairing knife, my boning knife, my slicer and bread knife, I could probably give all my other far more expensive knives away and never miss them. Yep, this chopper is that good. I'm seriously considering buying a second one. FINAL WORD: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Buy one, you won't regret it. Absolute BEST BUY in the entire knife universe.

The good: It's a workhorse and a joy to chop with! It was very sharp out of the box, and the price is right. The less good: The wooden handle looked dry/needed conditioning, but this was easily fixed with some butcher's block oil. The not so good: Over the past 10 months it t has developed some slight rust marks on the back side of the blade. It should be easy to remove, but I take good care of this knife and always dry it after use, so I was surprised to see it rust starting to appear.

I love this knife. Bought it to bbn protect my fingers because the fulcrum of my previous knife (I would creep up on the blade during hard cuts.) was leading to injury. Cleaver shape solved it beautifully. Amazingly, it's also comfortable and good for veggies and mincing. It was a little larger than I was expecting, but it's just not an issue.

Arrived extremely sharp! I've only honed it with a ceramic rod for almost a year. I'll need to perform its first sharpening soon, though. I've been hoping to make a transition from western-style soft-steel chef knives to a cleaver such as this for some time. Most cleavers, however, are way to blunt and dull, and are meant more for chopping and obtuse work... at least western-style cleavers. Ergo, my search started for an Asian-style cleaver (thinner blade, harder steel). When my search brought up this one, the price was right, and I thought that I could try it out and if I liked using an Asian cleaver for the majority of my prep work and fine cutting tasks, I could always upgrade. Happy to say that I feel no need to upgrade. This is a very fine piece, and will suit me well for many, many years. I've transitioned over to using a cleaver blade for the majority of my prep work now, and I don't regret it at all. I don't rock-cut anymore, as this blade has trained me to chop cut, and I get better and better at it the more I use it. I'm loving the ability to continue to cut and cut without the food sliding up and falling over the top of the blade to the other side. The only thing I'd caution on this blade, as well as other Asian-style knives, is that they are typically higher content in carbon steel. Hand wash them, and immediately dry. Don't soak in water. Don't use a dish washing machine. I haven't had to oil the blade, but doing so every now and again can be helpful. I would suggest oiling the wooden handle from time to time with the appropriate wood treatment. Very fine instrument. Highly recommend.

Just got this knife and I can say that the craftsmanship is outstanding. It is heavy in the hand, the handle has a great non slip grip to it and the blade is extremely sharp. I diced a lot of vegetables to try it out and did not have any issues with carrots, tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, potatoes, cabbage, and cilantro. The large face of the blade lets you really control the distance between cuts and you can quickly get very fine chops - whereas with a traditional kitchen knife you have to maneuver your hand away. I really like that you can scoop a lot of diced vegetables up at once. My knife had no damage to it, no knicks, no scratches or anything like that. Really happy with this purchase and didn't realize what I was missing out on. I researched knives and this brand had a lot of good reviews on review comparison sites. It cost mid-40's so a bit more expensive than others, but I think the value is there. The box it came in is cardboard but has a very nice design to it and I plan to keep the knife in there for now until I can get a proper retainer for it. If anything changes over time, I will update this review.