DALSTRONGSlicing Carving Knife - 10 inch - Granton Edge - Gladiator Series Elite - Forged High-Carbon German Steel Kitchen Knife Gift- G10 Handle - w/Sheath - NSF Certified

Let me start by saying I have many knives. I have Yaxell Gou's, Wusthof Culinar's, Dalstrong Shogun and Gladiator, Chicago Cutlery, etc. Outside of the kitchen I have a good connection of folders with several ZDP-189 Spyderco's.I'll start by saying I generally think Dalstrong is overpriced made in China Japanese wanna be cutlery but the company does stand by their product and put a lot of time into making customers happy. See my other reviews on Dalstrongs.In this case I was pleasantly surprised. I got this early in the Dalstrong launch. The knife came sharp, the grind was good generally good design etc. Is it a Yaxell Gou, absolutely not. Is it a good knife for the price? Yes.I used it to slice homemade Bacon on the first cut. It did a great job, cut straight. The blade was straight front to back. I'm happy with the quality on this knife and the performance for the price for hardened German steel.The fit and finish was good but not great. What you would expect at this price range.I also used the knife to cut brisket as I live in Texas. The crust doesn't slice as well as a $30 dollar scalloped dexter russell. Those points just penetrate the crust better. Still, for many things I'm pretty happy and this is serving the purpose I bought it for.Update:I now have the shogun. For the cost the gladiator is a better deal. It's not as solid feeling and doesn't have as much back to the knife but will do the job as a slicer. It's a touch longer in the handle than the Shogun as pictured.

Usually when someone is looking for a slicer like this, the defacto go-to is the victorinox fibrox pro slicer. I spent a lot of time reading reviews before deciding to go with this one instead for one simple reason: This knife is for my home, where I like to have things that look nice and work nice and I felt the fibrox was a bit industrial for my tastes. So I took a chance with the Dalstrong as it was clearly a nicer looking knife but I had no idea how it would stand up to the task against the fibrox.The packaging of this knife is fantastic. a high-end unboxing experience for sure. I was impressed. The knife itself is a very handsome looking knife. It has a bit of weight, it shines, the handle is sleek and comfortable and the blade was much sharper than I expected.Performance wise this handled very well. I could not imagine another slicing knife having significantly better performance - especially for the price.All in all, I am very happy I went for this knife. It looks excellent in the kitchen, it absolutely impresses the table when it's presented, and it is a serious blade up to the task all at the same time.

Packaging was impressive and each component of the set had satisfying weight. The steel is a little short but that is ok. The knife performs well and looks great. However what would have been an excellent and ergonomic handle is ruined by the tang being proud uniformly along the handle and is rather sharp where it is. This is true of the steel and fork as well. Since I don't use a slicer in my home very often and when I do it is a short affair this is not a very big deal. However if this had been a chef's knife or santoku I would be working with for a while I would be very unhappy. I have purchased knives for half the price that have better assembly than this. I was considering Some Dalstrong Shogun knives to replace some of the cheaper Japanese knives in my block but was skeptical with them being such a new comer with distribution limited to Amazon. As a result I did not give their positive reviews too much credit assuming most of the purchases were by people who have never used a good knife before. Long story short, if this is what I can expect from the shogun line saving $30 on nakiri over a $139 Shun Nakiri just does not make sense to me.*****UPDATE*****In less than a day after my review Dalstrong has contacted me regarding the condition of the knife I had received and has made promises to resolve the issue at no expense to me. They however were out of this knife at the time of contact and I will have to wait for it to become available. Given the level of customer support they have displayed up to this point I have no reason to believe they will not make good on this promise. I will be upgrading my review from 3 to 4 stars until such time as I receive the knife they want me to have. In truth I have been so impressed with their efforts I would like to give them the full five stars but this is a review of a knife and not just customer service. I look forward to being able to update this review very soon.****UPDATE 2****Problem has been addressed with a replacement from Dalstrong, Great knife and stellar customer support.

So right away, it's worth noting that this knife is beautiful. Quality materials and craftsmanship are immediately apparent from the moment you take it out of the box (which itself is pretty nice too). Seriously, you almost want to put this on display.Weight is good, it feels pretty well balanced for something this long (again, a good sign that shortcuts weren't taken when constructing the handle or selecting materials).It comes with a sheath for the blade, which is a plus (other brands offered sheaths, but require it to be purchased separately). Please don't order something like this and then jam it into a knife drawer - one, you'll damage the blade edge, and two, you'll end up cutting your finger tips off because this thing is SHARP.So far, I've used mine to trim a raw brisket and then to slice (after washing, of course) the cooked brisket. The blade easily slices through without tearing apart the meat at the grain. Definitely have to be careful to not get ahead of yourself and catch a finger, because the slice is almost effortless. I haven't tried it, but I imagine this would work well too with slicing bread, or pork/beef tenderloin or carving a turkey.I wish there was a matching carving fork to make a set, but this knife is great on its own. Very happy with this purchase!