Global 4 inch Paring Knife - Lightweight Japanese Stainless Steel, Razor-Sharp Edge, Made in Japan, GS-7

***Update 4/2013***With this knife and a good chef's knife you can do 95% of the cutting in the kitchen. I have a range of knife sizes and I almost always use the chef's knife or this one.The knife is still razor sharp after years of use. I sharpen it only a few times a year, since the steel is harder than most other high end kitchen knives.After using the knife more the textured handle resists slipping quite well even when wet, my initial impressions were off. You just hold the knife tighter and it stays solid.***Original Review***After getting tired of cutting fruit with my 10" global chef's knife, I got this paring knife to deal with smaller jobs. It's razor-sharp, and looks great. The handle can get a bit slippery if it gets wet or covered in fruit juice - but I always keep my cutting hand dry so it's not a problem.It's worth getting a plastic sheath for it - you can get one on Amazon easily. Don't let such a great knife rattle around in a drawer unprotected and get ruined!

Super sharp, easy to clean and ergonomic. Good for precision chopping, slicing and paring. The angle keeps me from hitting my fingers on the cutting board. As nice as the santuku which I also own. Kind of expensive but it will last forever. The thin profile of the blade makes for easy cuts. If you want very high quality, great functionality and easy cleanup this is it.As an aside: A few years back I was at Sur la Table a chef's store and they had about a dozen different chef's knives out for testing to chop carrots. The Global stood out as the best of the lot and I'm still happy with the Santuku. That influenced my choice with the smaller knife.

My husband is a chef and had this same exact knife in our kitchen and I started using it to cut EVERYTHING. I have smaller hands so this to me just was the perfect size, shape and weight for a knife, not to mention SHARP!! He ended up commandeering all his chef's knives so I found this same exact one on Amazon and bought my own! I absolutely LOVE this thing and so happy I was able to find it here! It's beyond worth the money and the performance is unlike any other knife. I highly recommend!!

I ordered this knife after being disappointed by the western style paring knife by Global. I sent it back because it was dull and I didn't like the way it felt in my hand it just felt too small or like it was gonna slip out of my hand so I spent a few more bucks and got this paring knife by Global... I love it. It came very sharp in fact I cut myself twice the first time I used it...I'm not complaining though it is what I wanted. I love the design and the way it fits in my hand I have small hands and I just hold it close to the top and hook my finger back behind the blade. This is by far my favorite knife in the kitchen I cut up fruit and vegetables everyday and I will wash this knife several times rather than reach for another. It is very sharp though so if you want a dull stick don't order this :) if you want something sharp you will love it. Not to mention it looks wicked cool.

I’ve tried tons of kitchen knives in my life and the Global knives are the best knives I’ve found in this price range. Extremely sharp, keep their edge, and feel perfect in your hand! This purchase was as a gift and I will continue to give this knife as gifts for friends and family until everyone has tried these!

Just a warning, this review will contain some graphical descriptions of injuries. Definitely not for the squeamish people.The knife may have some additional desires, but overall, it's the best set you can sink your teeth into, and of course, blow a few hundreds on. I paid a total of $35 at Bed Bath and Beyond, but worth every penny. Here's why:Looks and Feel:To most people, a knife is just a knife. To those who actually use knives on a daily basis, a knife is a blade designed for specific tasks, and not any knife will act as a universal knife for all tasks. The full one-piece blade-to-handle is the exact type of knife that one should look into. A knife with an attached wooden or plastic handle will cause stickiness, deterioration, and sanitary issues later down the road. I know first hand, since I have a drawer full of knife types. The way the knives are made, the handle actually balance with the blade when you place the middle finger into the groove, and start cutting. The proper cutting technique is placing the middle finger in the groove (the bolster), while the thumb and index fingers' tips are place on each side body of the knife for stability during quick action chopping. The balance is slightly off if you just attempt to balance the knives on your index finger just being curious. When you cut, take a notice of your fingers, palm, and wrist strains. Too much pressure on your thumb and middle finger, the handle is too heavy. Too much focus on your palm's heel, the blade is too heavy. Either will cause a bit of a wrist strain after 5 minutes of cutting.But these knives are perfectly balanced, and eliminating the strains. The handle is excellent in so many way. The dimples actually created slight suction if you wet your hand with warm water, while maintaining the handle clean from oily and meat fluids. Once there's an oily film on the handle, no knife's handle will maintain the proper grip.The blade:4-inch (more like a 3.5-inch) paring knife is awesome when it comes to peeling veggies' and fruits' skins. Slightly easier to hold a 4-inch than a 5-inch when it comes to quick skins removal of veggies and fruits. Still, the blade is so sharp, one accidental mistake will cut to your bones. It may have the sharpness to slice through pretty much all your meats (from frozen to a pile of pounded glob), veggies (hard like jamaca and hard shell veggies or ultra soft like over ripen tomatoes), BUT, it doesn't have the supportive size like the 5-inch or 7-inch knives. Once slice, one cut, straight through without rough edges. Carelessness will cause you your fingers. It claimed my left middle finger's nail and meaty tip, cut through my ring finger's blood vessel, my wife's middle and index finger's blood vessels, my friend's middle finger's tip, my wife's mom pinky finger's blood vessel. Let's just say that the knife made its mark on our bones. That's how sharp the blade is right out of the box.If you know how to make an awesome onion blossom, you'll understand the knife's potential. Or better yet, prepping bell peppers and tofu blocks for stuffing with meat and veggies, this knife can quickly transform a raw item into culinary art in no time.The durability and sharpness:The knives are truly durable in all ways, but the cutting edges are not. You can drop it, toss, bang it, and pound it to the wood or plastic surface as you can all you want, the knives don't get any dent, bent, or ding. But, the cutting edge, honed at 15 degree, will get damaged if you slam it into bones, hard ceramic surfaces, metal, or any thing hard. I don't think any fine cutlery can stand up to such an abuse. Gentle sliding from front of the blade to the back will cut through pretty much everything, without requiring brute force to chop off your foods. Right out of the box, if you take care of of your blades properly during your days of food prepping, the blades will continue to have the sharpness up to 6 months. You'll notice a decrease of sharpness after the 6 months. If you're continuously cutting through frozen foods, especially meat, you'll notice the sharpness will start to decrease after two months of usages. The sharp edge of the knife will have misalignment, and the uniform edge will now have small imperfect warps. This is where a sharpening steel comes into play. Get a good steel like The Ultimate Edge Model 10NSS Stainless-Steel Handle Diamond Sharpening Steel (600 grit) or the cheaper The Ultimate Edge Model 10W Gourmet 10-Inch Oval Diamond Sharpening Steel (1800 grit people!). After a few sessions with frozen foods, use the steel to realign and sharpen the blade back up. Try to use it after every session, and you'll continue to keep the blades extremely sharp. Otherwise, if you keep neglecting to maintain your blades, you will have to purchase a honing-resharpening device, like the MinoSharp Plus or the whetstones (rough 320 grit and fine 1000 grit).Cleaning:The cleaning is extremely easy, after much usages. My knives with the plastic and wooden handles get so dirty and filled with food particles along the handles' edges that I have to toss them away. There's no way to clean them off without destroying the knives. Over time, around a year, the food particles and the oils forms an amber-resin like stain around the handles, disallowing any stain removal agent to get rid of them. The Global's one piece blades remove that issue. The cleaning only requires warm to hot water, and a soapy sponge. How easy is that? I have this set for over year now, and no stain what so ever. If there's caramel or sticky substance on it, run it under hot water for 30 seconds, then clean the entire knife with a hot soapy sponge, and it becomes like new again. Can't even find a bad thing to say about this. Small opinions here and there, but this is the first set of knives I could not find any bad to say.

Oh man.... I love knives. I'm obsessive about knives. I especially love good cooking knives. I now only recommend two brands to my friends in the market for cooking knives. Victorinox and Global (which is Anthony Bourdain's favorite brand of knives). Victorinox is the value brand - their knives cut better than anything in the mid range, sharpen better than anything in the mid range, and stay sharp better than ... At the expensive oh my god these are awesome range is Global. This spearshaped paring knife is a superb example of why they're so brilliantly designed.