One night, as we were cleaning up after dinner, Aiko sighed and said, “I’m tired of replacing cutting boards. They stain, they smell… they never feel truly clean.” I looked at the worn plastic board in her hands and realized she was right. For something so essential in our everyday lives, why were we still using materials that clearly didn’t belong in a healthy kitchen?

That’s when it clicked.

Every day in the operating room, I work with surgical-grade stainless steel — a material trusted with human life. It’s sterile, non-porous, easy to clean, and built to last. I remembered what my professor once told us in medical school:

“We don’t use this steel because it’s fancy. We use it because nothing else compares.”

And that’s when I thought: Why not bring that same level of safety and purity into our kitchen — and into others’?

That night, we sketched the first idea of what would later become Samurai Boards — a cutting board made with the same integrity as a surgical instrument, but designed for the home.

Today, our boards are used by families and chefs who value health, simplicity, and timeless quality.