jeancho

Purple Wine Cafe is at 4th and University--interesting wine flights (Yes, I know you said lunch) and good salads, bruschetta, bar type of food--not fussy and fairly reasonable (i.e. $10 large entre salads) I also like Cafe Campgne near Pike's Market for lunch (though not inexpensive)

Thanks so much for all the feedback. I do not feel I could go the "whetstone" route, and chose instead to go with a professional knife sharpener, Bob Kramer at Bladesmith http://kramerknives.com/index.htm. He is a knife god, and he not only will sharpen knives and return them pretty quickly, but also makes custom carbon steel knives (1 year waiting list for knives that start at $400--he's going to be in Cooks Illustrated this month and has been in Saveur). I sent half my knives and they were extremely sharp--my plan is to use my steel each time I use the knives and send them back out to him once a year for professional sharpening. My formerly dull butter knives can slice paper now. I'm not going to use my old Chef's Choice any more.

I've had a Chef's Choice for over 15 years and notice that my knives are getting duller and don't keep their edge (despite regrinding on slot 1). I've used a steel in the past, but learned that you can't use both a steel and Chef's Choice. Am I better sending my knives to a professional sharpener and using the steel in between, or getting a new Chef's Choice and sharpening them myself? I want to keep a sharp edge longer (I'm pretty lazy) but don't want to grind my knives down too much.