KAZ

I have spent the last three months testing sushi plate sets in my own kitchen, running family sushi nights every Friday, and letting my two kids drop chopsticks and soy sauce all over everything. Here is what I learned fast: not every dinnerware set on the market is built for sushi. Standard round plates crowd … Read more

Walking into a Japanese knife shop for the first time feels like stepping into another world. The names alone, yanagiba, sujihiki, deba, gyuto, sound like a foreign language. After two years of testing blades in our test kitchen and a small mountain of tuna, salmon, and yellowtail later, our team at KAZ Sushi Bistro has … Read more

If you cook Japanese food at home, a suribachi is one of those tools that quietly changes everything. I bought my first one three years ago after watching a sushi chef in Osaka turn toasted sesame seeds into fragrant paste in under a minute. My food processor never managed that texture, no matter how long … Read more

When I first cooked a bowl of ramen at home and tasted fresh-ground sesame paste, I realized my food processor had been lying to me for years. It chopped, it minced, it pureed — but it never actually ground anything. The difference hit me the moment I tried a real Japanese mortar and pestle. The … Read more

I have sliced a lot of daikon in my time behind a sushi bar, and nothing gives me paper-thin, even cuts faster than a Benriner mandoline slicer. After years of prepping garnishes, pickled vegetables, and cucumber ribbons for rolls, I wanted to put together a guide to the best Benriner mandoline slicers for that goes … Read more

If you have ever tried slicing daikon paper-thin with a chef’s knife, you already understand why the best Japanese mandoline slicers sit on nearly every sushi counter in Tokyo. These tools deliver uniform 0.5mm to 3mm cuts that no knife can match, and they cut prep time in half for busy kitchens. Our team at … Read more

I have spent the last three months running my home kitchen like a small prep station, slicing cabbage for tonkatsu, julienning daikon, and shaving paper-thin cucumber rounds for sushi plating. After going through eight of the most talked-about best Japanese vegetable slicers available right now, I can tell you that not every blade earns its … Read more

When I first started making ginger pork at home, I grabbed a box grater and regretted it instantly. The ginger juice ran everywhere, the fibers clogged the holes, and the flavor was nowhere near what I tasted at my favorite Japanese restaurants. That moment sent me down a rabbit hole that lasted three months and … Read more

I cooked with the same bent slotted spoon for years before I bought my first spider strainer. The difference was immediate. Food drained faster, hot oil stopped splashing up my forearm, and delicate wontons stopped tearing. After 60 days of testing 10 different models in my home kitchen, I want to share what actually works … Read more

I have spent the better part of a decade in professional and home kitchens, and few tools divide cooks faster than the humble ginger grater. Some swear by the traditional Japanese oroshigane, others reach for a Western microplane, and a few stubbornly keep hacking away with the side of a box grater. After testing eight … Read more