I have a lovely set of Wusthof Trident Knives and they are brilliant, they are almost 10 years old and they look brand new, I sharpen the up once in a while and they make cooking a real pleasure, I also have a Santuku Knife, which is quite small and I really do love it. You will only have to buy one set of knives your whole life, so don't scrimp on them. I threw one of my paring knives away by accident and I got a replacement on Amazon.co.uk. Spend the money...you won't regret it. Costco has some good sets if you can get there, I think they carry Global. To be honest, good knives don't have to be a brand name...