Choil shots: sg2 cleaver, shi ba zi cleaver #2, Shindo bunka, large kiwi nakiri

A few weeks ago someone posted about an sg2 Ali express cleaver that many claimed to prefer over their cck. I’ve been wanting a cck for awhile, but what’s held me back is that the stainless version was known to have terrible steel quality and it was often in the 80-130 usd range (which some have said is overpriced). Hoping this Ali express cleaver could be the cck alternative I’ve been searching for, I ordered one and crossed my fingers 🤞

This morning I received it and was pleasantly surprised. 

***Weight***: It was fairly light for its size but still had enough weight to cut small carrots with only horizontal force. 

***Edge***: Its edge came able to cut up paper towel and I haven’t sharpened it yet. It claims it’s SG2, but I’m not able to provide much more insight on the steel besides that it is stainless and its edge seems to cut well. 

***Profile***: the profile has a curve that reaches its peak at roughly 1/3 way from the heel. In use, I didn’t find any issues with the profile or stringing since it’s a decent size and length cleaver (I prefer flat profiles).

***Grind and Food Release***: it seems to be ever so slightly more ground on the right side of the choil shot or the left side of the blade when cutting. I don’t know if this is intentional but there doesn’t seem to be much noticeable steering (a big problem with my shi ba zi cleaver). When cutting things like carrots, I’ve noticed that a lot of thinner Japanese knives have food release problems. This cleaver has the best food release of the knives listed in the short time I’ve tested them so far. For certain sizes and cuts of carrots, it will simply pop off to the side without sticking. 

***Fit and Finish***: nothing crazy but nothing terrible either. The blade seems to have a brushed finish that had a very slight wave to it (not important or noticeable at all). The handle was on the polished side rather than the standard grippy cleaver handles (I prefer this handle). The bolster and the tang are separate so there is a very very small gap between the two where water can go through. I honestly don’t think this is that big of a problem, but to be safe, you can just stuff a little bit of beeswax in the crevice to make it completely waterproof. The spine is very thin and not rounded, but I do like the finger notch and find it looks cool. 

***Comparison***: the *Shindo* is my sharpest cutter as well as the knife that goes through dense ingredients like carrots the best. 

The *kiwi nakiri* however is insanely good for its price, it has a worse steel that just doesn’t give that insane level of sharpness when cutting things like onions. However, for denser ingredients like carrots, it only just falls ever so slightly short of the Shindo. The kiwi is a very solid cheap and low maintenance laser. 

The *shi ba zi cleaver* is my workhorse with a grind I’d use to cut anything I wouldn’t want to use my more fragile knives on. The problem is that with veg like onions and carrots, it will noticeably steer making it frustrating to cook with and a little dangerous too. 

The sg2 cleaver combines all of these strengths into one knife. Its grind allows it to be thin enough not to noticeably steer on up to a medium to large onion, and a medium to large carrot. Its length allows you to get clean and straight cuts for brunoise and its weight is very useful when push cutting. 

For onions, I was very pleasantly surprised. It allowed me to get extremely thin cuts for dicing onions and its tip was thin, allowing me to easily go into the onions without crushing the onion cells. Furthermore, when cutting the onions into a dice, the sharpness of a knife really shines. The biggest weakness of the kiwi was that you could notice it was slightly less sharp going into the onions, but this cleaver ghosted through them. 

Potatoes: the potatoes I had were very soft and starchy from being in the fridge awhile. It had no problem cutting through them, but they did stick the most. However, due to the strong performance of this cleaver on every other test, this is far from a deal breaker.

Who is this for?: if you’re like me who wants an affordable knife that can scrape up food from the board but also wants a knife that doesn’t compromise in performance, this might be the one. 

\*Sorry for the yap, I just wanted to put out as much info as possible for those who may be curious like me.

Also, I’m not an expert on knives or anything so feel free to correct me on anything if I made some mistake. 

TLDR: the knife is cheap and good. I will probably use it more as it feels fairly well rounded.

Idk if I’m allowed to link stuff, but it’s just called sg2 cleaver on Ali and I got it just under 50 usd. 

SG2 Ali express cleaver first look