Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For months, I had been telling my wife that I wanted to get a chef's knife. She told me that we didn't need one because we already had one (Faberware). I explained to her that a "real" chef's knife would make the existing knife in our cupboard look like a plastic knife. Well, maybe I exaggerated, but not by much. This knife came protected in a plastic blisterpak that was easily removable. The handle has a very comfortable grip and the material is slightly textured so that even having water on this knife means that it won't slip out of your hands. Does it look fancy? Nope. Does it work pretty well as a chef's knife? YES! When comparing this against our current Faberware, there is just no comparison. The Victorinox truly made the Faberware feel like it was a plastic knife. My wife pulled out some tomatoes and sweet potatoes to do the test with me. First of all, we cut up a sweet potato using the knives side by side. The Faberware had to chop into the potato like a meat cleaver. She used the Victorinox next and it cut into the sweet potato with a lot more ease, but not enough to convince her just yet. She said that they were about the same. I told her she probably wasn't using it right since she also chopped the sweet potato with the knife with the same force as if it were a meat cleaver. I told her she should use a rocking motion like the way chefs do it on TV. No matter. Next, she sliced into some tomatoes with the Faberware and it looked like she had no problem. She then did her best to cut a thin slice from the tomato. The slice was maybe 1/4 of an inch. Next, she took the Victorinox and it sliced through the tomato like butter. Her face brightened, but what came next was even better. She was able to cut a slice of the tomato so thin that it was like wax paper. She was so pleasantly surprised that she kept cutting thin slices for about 5 more minutes. She went back to the Faberware to try to do the same and just couldn't. The knife slipped from the tomato whenever she tried to slice it as thinly as the Victorinox. To try to make it a fair fight, I sharpened the Faberware several times to make sure it wasn't under-performing due to a dull blade. Same result. The Faberware couldn't hold a candle to the Victorinox in our tomato cutting tests. She held the Victorinox in her hand and remarked, "So this is what chefs use in the kitchen, huh?" I said, "Yeah, and you should listen to me more." Long story short, she was amazed and approved of my purchase. Get this knife if you have been suffering from "plastic" knife syndrome.