I have been hooked on Ken Onion knives since I first bought a Ken Onion Blur tactical folding knife. The lines are both attractive and functional on his knife designs. I then splurged on an 8-inch chef's knife about a year ago. That knife quickly replaced almost all my other knives for most tasks. The handle is perfectly designed to promote a pinch grip that gives you tons of control.
When I saw this knife come across on a lightning deal, I had no choice. For the first time I caught a glimpse of what the characters of Sex in the City felt like when seeing a killer pair of shoes on sale (never seen the show, but I assume that must have happened). Even though I had three paring knives, I had to have this one.
Glad I bought it. This angle is unique, for sure, but it's nice in that you can still get a nice full grip of the substantial handle while avoiding banging your knuckles into the cutting board. Years ago there was a line of Shun knives called Alton's Angles; this seems to be the rebirth of that concept, although Ken Onion gets the royalties this time rather than Alton Brown. This knife is great for handheld paring tasks, as well as work on a board. It quickly became my favorite paring knife.
Let me address the sharpness issue in a couple of negative reviews. If you're comparing this to a victorinox forchner (great knife, no disrespect) or a Wusthof or a Henckels, you probably already have an appreciation for great knife design. However, those are german-designed steels with Rockwell Hardness scores in the high 50s (58 or so). This means they will hold an edge reasonably well, but will also be reasonably easy to sharpen. They are ground to about a 22 degree bevel.
These Shun knives (and Globals, as well as certain Henckels lines, MAC, etc) are made from a harder steel. They have a hardness rating over 60 (as high as 63). This allows them to be ground to a sharper edge (around 15-17 degrees). That means they'll be less adept at crushing bones and processing whole chickens, but you'll get paper-thin slices of tomato or sashimi. You'll also mince ginger or garlic or shallots or chives with ease. However, with a harder steel comes more difficult sharpening. Once sharp, though, it will hold its edge longer.
I highly recommend this knife, and any in the Ken Onion line. I also recommend getting a magnetic strip MIU France Stainless Steel Magnetic Knife Holder, 20-Inches or knife dock The Container Store Knife Dock to hold them securely and avoid banging around in the drawer. I also recommend a wood, end-grain cutting board Proteak Teak Cutting Board Rectangle 20-by-14-by-2-1/2-Inch Hand Grip and Juice Canal, End Grain or polypropylene one OXO Good Grips 10-1/2-by-15-Inch Utility Cutting Board, Black Edge (the OXO fits in the dishwasher). Hand-wash your knife and dry it before storage and you won't have any issues with rust. Unlike carbon-steel knives, this is a very low-maintenance blade.
Lastly, to maintain your blade, I recommend using a honing rod after every use or at least every few uses Shun DM0750 Sharpening Steel the Shun has an angle guide for both german and japanese angles. Note this is a honing rod, and not a sharpener, although most honing steels are still marketed as sharpening steels, unless they are diamond or ceramic, they won't sharpen. I also recommend a dedicated sharpener for use once every 6-12 months. I don't like the rod idea for taking off metal to restore a blade too much room for error. I like one that gives you good control and low risk of damaging blades (i.e. a manual one) my favorite is this one: Spyderco 204MF Triangle Sharpmaker.
This is an extremely well shaped knife, nothing like your average paring knife. It is more like a mini santoku knife in the way it operates. It chops, dices and pares with ease and is extremely easy to handle. I had thought the weight of the knife would make it less capable, but it does not. It cuts through everything with aplomb.
As far as the rust report by another individual. We have not seen that at all. We, of course, do not wash it in a dishwasher. Not sure if they did. But ours shines like new.
Note that at times, some rust can poke through on a knife made of carbon steel. Usually a good scrubbing gets rid of it. But we have not seen that at all on these knives.
Buy Shun Ken Onion 3-Inch Paring Knife Now
This 3 inch paring knife is easily 5 stars. It seems a bit pricy when you realize that for only a few dollars more you can get the much bigger Shun Ken Onion knives, but this is a very handy size and much easier to manipulate and cut stuff than some of the larger knives. Especially if you have not been trained as a professional chef. The blade is very nice looking with the Damascus looking ripples in the blade. It has a 3/4 shank. The bolsters are very well made and fit both the blade and handles very well. The handle looks to made out of some sort of dark wood, possibly Ebony. The feel of the contoured handle is very comfortable and the angle of the blade to the handle seems well thought out. Over all this is a very good knife and I think if you do a lot of cooking this one is well worth the money.
Read Best Reviews of Shun Ken Onion 3-Inch Paring Knife Here
I bought three Shun knives from the lower end of the collection just to see if all the hoopla about Shun was just that or if these knives are for real. They're for real. Great little knife that is very sharp and fits my hand nicely. I shaved a soft peach of its skin and did so removing a minimal amount of fruit while the skin came away effortlessly. Much better than my Wusthoff.
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I already had two paring knives (one German, one Japanese) but when I saw this one I had to try it. I have two (different) Shun knives already and so knew the quality would be great and it is. I love the design of this knife because I can use it for all those little jobs that one is "supposed" to use a chef's or utility knife for but in reality a 3" blade is quite enough: slicing or chopping pitted olives, slicing a few strawberries, halving cherry tomatoes, chopping herbs, etc etc. It's especially handy when prepping a small quantity of something for 1 or 2 people. The handle is instantly comfortable -great little knife! I have a feeling my other two parers are going to sulk in the knife block for quite some time, LOL.
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I bought this cutting board because the cutting board I currently have for cutting meat slips on our counter. This cutting board has non-slip grips in the four corners, and this part of the board works great. The board is very sturdy and doesn't move when cutting things. What I don't like about the board is the juice groove is not deep enough to be effective for its job. I needed something for cutting meat after grilling. Since we like our meat on the rare side we need the cutting board to have a juice groove deep enough to catch the juices. This board's groove was very shallow. It was more decorative than functional. If you don't need the juice groove feature then I'd recommend the board. Otherwise I'd look for a different board.
