Steak knives

[Denis]

Victorinox steak knives are hard to beat. They cost about $3 each, and are as sharp as all get-out.

[SeekHer]

Check out A.G. Russell, Kershaw Cutlery, Kuhn-Rikon and Tramontina for good steak knives...

EDIT
The Kuhn-Rikon, a Swiss company, has a set of six, Teflon coated blades, for under $50 and come in red, black or blue handles in a plastic storage box--very sweet little knife that cuts very well but you must check out the multicoloured paring knives which are just a bit smaller and come in a dozen different colours and bought individually for six would be around $45.00 and they are amazing knives--my wife loves paring knives (has aroung sixty or so) and bought a couple of pink ones, a yellow and a limey green one for us to use and they cut slicker then grain through a goose...come serrated or straight edged and with a litle hard nylon blade cover.

[rightisright]

The cheap "bang for your buck" winner was these.

Chicago Cutlery knives kick ass. Inexpensive, sharp enough to shave with and they hold an edge for a long time. My favorite chef's knife is a Chicago Cutlery that I bought for ~$35.

ETA: If you are cooking good meat (Prime ribeye, strip, etc) a serrated knife will shred the meat instead of cutting it...

[SeekHer]

I am truly amazed at the quality of the KAI - Kershaw kitchen blades and their Shun Oriental style blades are a delight to use and well priced...We've had the Chopper (Nakiri), slicer (Yanagiba) and chef's (Santoku) knife for about six months and they are just great to use…Their set of six steak knives is MSRP of $90.00 but I’ve seen them for <$60.00 on some of the dealer’s sites.

I just saw the Cold Steelsteak knives, fully serrated, at a party we went to and they are pure crap...Priced them on their site and individually they sell for $11.99 or a set of six for $64.99 and would be over-priced at half that amount, Hell a quarter the amount...The proud party givers thought they were the best things going until you look at the handles and the Kraton fibres are flaking off and the handle is separating from the blade--both due to heat and they're supposed to be dishwasher safe…Mind you the blades did cut quite finely for serrations with little tearing of the food, now if they can only do something about the handles.

A.G. Russell carries both the Kuhn-Rikon and KAI Shun blades but their own VG-10 Core Damascus Kitchen Knives albeit expensive are pure works of art but I wish they had a different handle colour, white is a little showing of greasy fingers etc.

[mekender]

Ok, here is the set I have now:

http://www.amazon.com/Henckels-Internat ... 14&sr=1-29


After looking, this appears to be a mid-range set from a fairly decent brand. I think it might be better to sharpen them than to replace them. Plus I can get a set of 6 more steak knives for pretty cheap that matches the set I already have.

So now I suppose I should look for a good, fairly reasonably priced sharpener.

[mekender]

Ok since I know nothing about knife sharpeners other than whetstones for pocket knives, what would be a good one to look at?

[rightisright]

get the chefs choice 2 or 3 stage ceramic or diamond machines.

+1 to that. I have their 3 stage sharpener. I think it was $120 several years ago. Puts a shaving-sharp edge on my knives in 30 seconds.

[SeekHer]

I did up a list in Knife Sharpeners

[Denis]

If you want to spend megabucks, Laguiole en Aubrac sells a set of steak knives made out of Concorde...

[308Mike]

Ok since I know nothing about knife sharpeners other than whetstones for pocket knives, what would be a good one to look at?

To add one more, I posted a link to the Spyderco Tri-Angle Sharpener in this post above, and it works GREAT!