Last May, American food historian John T. Edge wrote an article for the New York Times on the Rooster brand of Sriracha chile sauce made by Huy Fong Foods, a company owned by David Tran, a Chinese Vietnamese immigrant. Sriracha lovers across America did a Pace Picante kind of double take when they realized that the hot chili sauce was manufactured in a Rosemead, California, not some exotic locale in tropical Vietnam. John T’s analysis of Sriracha’s wide ranging success and cross-cultural uses made me wonder: Is Sriracha destined to be the uber Asian chile sauce?
Pim of ChezPim.com, born and raised in Thailand, led a lengthy Twitter discussion to clarify that despite Rooster brand’s Sriracha being THE go-to condiment for Vietnamese pho noodle soup, Sriracha is of Thai origin and not Vietnamese whatsover; Sri Racha is a seaside town in Central Thailand and the namesake chile sauce got its start there. John T.’s piece told the complex tale of an immigrant hot sauce in America, but he didn’t delve deeply into Sriracha itself. That wasn’t the point of his story. However, Pim’s Twitter discussion and my subsequent conversation with her about Sriracha led me to wonder about what other kinds of Sriracha sauces are out there in the American market. So I set about over the past 8 weeks to collect, taste, and make Sriracha hot sauce. This post is one of two on Sriracha.
A few points of clarification:
- Sriracha is not a traditional Vietnamese condiment but there is a similar condiment produced in Vietnam. Sriracha is not found in tons of restaurants and private homes in Vietnam. What you mostly see in the Motherland is lots of fresh chiles.
- Sriracha chile sauce is a Vietnamese-American phenomenon. The Rooster brand’s parent company, Huy Fong Food calls it Tuong Ot Sriracha (Sriracha chile sauce). They make a coarse chile sauce called Tuong Ot Toi Viet Nam (Vietnamese chile garlic sauce), which I gather was meant for the Vietnamese palate, though their Thai-style Sriracha has ironically become ubiquitous.
- I don’t champion squirting Sriracha into pho noodle soup. It ruins the broth. Unless the broth is dishwater-bad and you desperately need to fix it, please don’t add the hot sauce to pho. Sriracha is nice to dip a bouncy pho meatball (put the sauce in a separate dish with hoisin). Would you add ketchup to homemade chicken noodle soup?
My collection of Sriracha
Both Pim and cookbook author and Thai food expert Nancie McDermott pointed me to Shark brand of Sriracha, which is made in Thailand. They both said it tasted like the stuff in Sri Racha, and that it was better than American-made Sriracha. To prove the point, Pim gifted me a bottle of Shark brand, which she purchased at Lion Foods market in Saratoga. I took one look at the glass bottle and realized that Thai-made Sriracha sauce was under my nose all these years and I just didn’t smell it!
Since then, whenever I’ve shopped at a Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai market, I check out the store’s Sriracha collection. I found Por Kwan brand at ABC market (corner of Magnolia and Brookhurst) in Little Saigon in Orange County. It came in medium and strong so I bought both. Then there was the Cholimex Tuong Ot chile sauce that I’d brought back from Vietnam; a waiter at the Sofitel hotel tipped me off to the stuff years ago and told me that he brought a six-pack of Cholimex with him whenever he visited family in Canada. I follow his lead and bring some back with me in my luggage on each trip back. I’d already had the Rooster brand Sriracha in my fridge.
Just yesterday while shopping at a Thai market in Los Angeles, I found a Thai knockoff of the Rooster brand. The plastic bottle, chicken logo, and label bear and uncanny resemblance to the Huy Fong Sriracha sauce. David Tran’s choice of a rooster mascot reflects is Chinese astrological symbol (roosters are known to be good cooks) so the Thai Double Chicken brand is a transparent attempt at ripping off Tran’s rooster logo.
Sriracha Smackdown
How do all of these commercially make Sriracha taste against each other? I held number informal tastings with anyone who came over for dinner to determine, as they used to say on SNL, “Quien es mas macho?” Below is a summary of everyone’s reactions:
L-R: Por Kwan strong, Por Kwan medium, Shark medium, Sriracha, Cholimex
Por Kwan Brand Sriracha: The medium heat version is smooth in texture and the strong one is slightly grainy. They’re both slightly darker red than their Thai brethen, which lean toward being orange-red. Both versions of Por Kwan tasted chemically. Pim said it’s hard to find Por Quan but found that it surprisingly tasted weird. After the initial smidgeon, neither of us wanted any more. Por quoi Por Quan? There are preservatives listed.
Shark Brand Sriracha: Comes in medium and strong, per Pim, but I’ve only seen the medium chile heat version. Shark is really well balanced, not too sweet, vinegary, or spicy hot. You can eat lots of it without blasting your taste buds. It does a good job of complementing flavors without overwhelming them. The label indicates no preservatives and in fact, includes the exact percentage of each ingredient. The screw cap is screwy and unreliable. I’ve seen it in many Asian markets since I started this quest.
Rooster Brand Sriracha: Is thicker in consistency and stronger in flavor than Thai-made Sriracha. Rooster brand has a sharp vinegary-heat that many people enjoy. You can feel its intensity to your follicles but it’s not always pleasant. Sometimes the Rooster brand of Sriracha has an acrid, off flavor. Use a little and it’s fine. Squirt too much and it becomes a flavor obliterator. Has preservatives listed.
Cholimex Tuong Ot: Is Vietnam-made and akin to a light version of Shark’s medium sauce. Cholimex is sweet as it contains a little tomato. Vietnamese food is not as spicy as Thai so the milder heat is understandable. There’s a slightly off, garlicky flavor though. Preservatives are part of the recipe.
Double Chicken Brand Sriracha: Tasted like Shark brand but packaged up in a Rooster brand-like plastic squirt bottle. The labels proudly says “Original Sriracha Chilli Sauce” and that it contains no artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, or MSG. Double Chicken brand is pleasant tasting and the squirt dispenser allows you to eat as much as you want, as well as create designs with it. This was the late entry, dark horse contestant as I found this sauce at LAX-C, a Thai warehouselike of foodstuffs located on Main Street on the fringes of Chinatown in Los Angeles.
Overall: The Rooster brand Sriracha is fine and widely available, but look a little harder at an Asian market (try closer to the floor!) and try to find Shark brand in the glass bottle; it’s available online too. Double Chicken brand seems pretty new and I don’t know if it will take off. When traveling in Vietnam, go to the condiment vendor at a wet market (or even to an indoor market like Ben Thanh market in Saigon) and get a bottle of Cholimex. If you like it, buy a six-pack for the road.
Linda Lim, a Korean-American friend who’s a chile fiend, participated in the initial round of tasting over July 4th weekend. I had some of my homemade chile garlic sauce out and when she finished tasting everything, she said, “Shark is good, but can’t you make your own?” So I did a little research . . . Stay tuned for Sriracha installment #2.
Do weigh in if you’ve tasted Sriracha from Thailand, these brands mentioned here or others! If you’re a Rooster lover, crow loudly and proudly too!
July 25 Update: Thai-style Sriracha Chile Sauce recipe (Tuong Ot Sriracha): a fresh and fermented version for you to choose from
Your article had me running to my fridge. I usually stick to the rooster brand myself and was shocked to hear it’s actually produced in the U.S.
Having run out recently, I just bought a bottle and thought it tasted different. Sure enough it’s the Viet Nam version of Tuong Ot. I bought it without looking carefully at the brand but because it was in a smaller bottle, which looks similar to the rooster too. Only it has a goose or swan on the logo. Bottle is similar though with the red nipple twist close cap.
Thanks for sharing. I will have to pay closer attention the next time as I like the Rooster brand better.
-Trent
http://blog.SmartShopIt.com
I love the reportorial aspects of your posts, Andrea. Who would’ve thunk the ubiquitous Sriracha is to Viet chile sauce what Chop Suey is to Chinese “cuisine”? LOL reading Pim’s revelation
Sriracha is of Thai origin, not Vietnamese at all — not even! Fell on the floor upon learning twas a seaside town in Central Thailand that lent its two names — Sri Racha — to the product that squished both together and as a single name known for extensive use in Vietnamese pho dishes. Hoo hah! This is for sure a wacky (if tasty and fun) world — thanks, teach, for “learning” us that background. 😉
Have seen this stuff referred to as “Asian Hot Sauce” when perhaps only 1 or 2 countries use it in Asia.
Have never seen it in use in the vast majority of SEAsian countries, and also not in Japan, China, Korea.
And absolutely agree with Andrea – I would never ever squirt the stuff into pho.
Sriracha lovers across America did a Pace Picante kind of double take when they realized that the hot chili sauce was manufactured in a Rosemead, California, not some exotic locale in tropical Vietnam.
I don’t get that. It says “made in Rosemead, California” right there on the bottle. Don’t people look at labels any more?
Huy Fong Sriracha is popular in the Czech Republic, probably due to the large Vietnamese immigrant population, although most Czechs think it’s “very VERY spicy” and should be handled with radiation-proof gloves. I prefer my local pho shop’s homemade chilli condiment, which involves dried chilli flakes and shallots fried in oil until everything’s dark-red and crispy and good.
Eve, I’d do a Pace Picante turnaround on your reporting that there are Viet people in the Czech Republic! Wow. And they have Sriracha too!
Has anyone been to Sri Racha? I understand that it’s rather dodgy, or was in the past!
Yep, folks, look at the label. You have to when buying Asian ingredients.
Nice report! I will likely look for shark brand when I next I head to Lion market but I have to say that not only did I know that Rooster brand was made here (like Eve I read the bottle), I appreciate that it is not shipped thousands of miles to get to my table. I’m all for authenticity but when local ingredients are available I like to make the choice that makes less of an impact on the planet and is better for the workers and for the local economy. The Silicon Valley has hundreds of small companies making authentic ethnic foods from Thai hot sauce to Russian pelmini. I say squirt California made Rooster brand hot sauce on San Jose Tofu Co. tofu and be authentically local.
Dunno about others but everyone I know if has known about this fact for quite sometime. In fact they’ve run small tv segments with David Tran himself talking about the sauce in years past.
I’m sure it’s a crime to some when thinking of squirting Siracha into pho, but when you’ve grown up doing that your whole life, it actually becomes an essential condiment in your bowl. Like eating a hot dog without any ketchup or mustard – it just isn’t right…
you don’t lay it on thick in pho, but a little squirt can add a nice bit of heat without taking away from the essential taste of the broth. I prefer other chili sauces though (like the thick stuff with seeds you often find in pho joints) — sriracha (rooster stuff anyway) has a very distinct little almost-metallic bite that I find distracting.
A short addition: upon occasion, I have been able to find the “strong” shark brand on the east coast (Providence, RI and Queens, NY). I like its flavor much more than medium. I find the medium to be not quite spicy enough for me. For me at least, this stuff was quite spicy which is welcome to me (someone who buys the gallon size sambal for two people).
There are about 60-80,000 Viet people living in the Czech Republic – the largest non-European ethnic group. Many were originally sent over as migrant workers under communism because Czechoslovakia had supplied North Vietnam with arms during the war, and the debt was to be repaid with labour according to communist economics.
Oddly enough, there are very few Vietnamese restaurants in the Czech Republic except for the cafes at the wholesale markets. A lot of Vietnamese Czechs own and work in restaurants, but almost always serving a very bland, salty, cornstarchy kind of homogenised Chinese food. I think maybe the assumption is that Czechs will not like real Vietnamese food, but at the markets I see everyone – Vietnamese, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Brits, Americans – enjoying pho bo and bun cha and cha gio.
Anh, you made a good point. If Sriracha is part of your pho ritual, then by all means, give your a bowl a squirt. Today, I had lunch at Pho 79 and a group of older Vietnamese men had a plate of wilted onion soaked in Sriracha as a chaser to pho. Vietnamese food is the ‘have it your way’ cuisine.
Mike, there is a slight metallic taste to Sriracha that the coarser tuong ot toi chile garlic paste doesn’t have.
Anna, I’d heard that the strong version of shark is better than the medium and now that you’ve verified it, I’ll have to be on the lookout.
Eve, that is so cool about the Vietnamese-Czech. I wonder about any kinds of fusion foods that have developed? The world is an amazing place!
Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts.
I haven’t seen any Czech-Vietnamese fusion foods, but two very typical Czech foods that you always see in Viet cafes here are fatty pork belly and carp, neither of which I much cared for until I had them as bun cha and bun ca. The bun ca from our favourite place is especially good – the little bits of fish are fried until really crisp and dry before they go in the soup.
I remember trying the shark brand and I didn’t like it. I prefer the rooster brand more but the older I get, the worse it taste.
I do prefer a squirt of sriracha in my pho, but it depends on how the pho taste. If ther broth is good, I don’t dare add anything to it. As Andrea puts it, if it taste like ‘dishwater’, I have to enhance it.
Great post, Andrea. Whenever I need “heat” in my pho, I just eat the sliced jalapeno/serano chilies that come with the veggies/herbs plate. If the broth needs “flavor enhancer”, I’d add fish sauce.
Since I learned to make pho from your recipe book and blog post, I rarely order pho… My next quest will be banh xeo 🙂
GREAT post, Andrea! Ever since that article came out, I’ve been wanting to try other brands, but had not gotten around to it yet. Like many people, I have that ubiquitous rooster bottle at hand. This is so helpful and inspirational.
Excellent investigative reporting! It’s tough job but someone’s got to do it.
Dave has been to Sriracha. He says it’s not lovely.
One thing to be careful about with the shark brand – I bought a bottle at my local market. Either I didn’t notice when I bought it or leaving it in the car for 45 minutes caused it to go bad as, when I opened it, it was discolored at the top.
It was a warm (but not hot) day, so I can’t discount the possibility (I covered it so it wasn’t in the sun and my top was down, so it wasn’t like it was boiling hot in the car).
However, the lack of preservatives should be factored in when buying the bottle. Make sure you inspect the bottle before you buy – don’t just grab and run as I did.
The thing is, you don’t know how it’s been been handled on its travels to the US either, so I’d be just a little wary when buying it. I plan on returning the bottle and trying again though.
dave
Check out my “So You Want To Be A Waiter” blog at:
http://teleburst.wordpress.com/
Andrea, am curious if you have tried Lingham from Malaysia. It’s really worth it to try, trust me, and would love to hear how it compares to the many Sriracha sauce you had tried. 🙂
Bee, I’ve not seen Lingham from Malaysia and now that you’ve mentioned it, I’ll have to seek it out! Thanks for the tip.
Dave — thanks for the heads up on Shark brand in a hot car. Oye.
Robyn and Dave, thought one of you had been to Sri Racha itself. Yep, not a great town.
And that’s the thing – it wasn’t a hot car at all. It was in the low 80s, my convertable top was down, it was somewhat overcast and the bottle was covered by several towels under the dashboard.
The shame is, I was planning to do a taste comparison on pizza (of all things). It was a bummer.
Maybe I’ll post a cell phone pic…
Yes, the next time you come down here, let me know. It’s available at the 99 Ranch in Irvine, near my house, will get you a bottle. I can practically drink Lingham chili sauce! 😉
I realize now why I didn’t notice the bottle was bad. The white seal covers up the top part of the sauce.
I took the bottle back to the store to replace it and was careful to pull back the seal on the replacement bottle and it was bad as well. So I guess the whole case that they had on the shelf was bad.
If you buy a bottle, make sure you remove the seal before you leave the store just in case you get a bad one. That way, you can swap it out or get your money back.
Yesterday I found some Uni-Eagle brand sriracha at my local asian store. It’s pretty good! It has a strong presence of dried chilli flavor, which is kind of interesting. My only wish was that it was a little saltier.
It also doesn’t contain any bisulphite, only an unspecified quantity of potassium sorbate as preservative, which I’m not too concerned about.
Try some if you find it…
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I agree that the Cholimex taste milder and yes a touch of garlic can be tasted. Best thing I like, after my meal that needs chili sauce with it, is a Vietnamese coffee after the meal.
Chuck,
I guess that would be worth rebelling against. I don’t think my post makes Greek theater “dictate the whole of literature.”
These are well-known, though perhaps not so well-understood, catagories of stories. Seems to me that the life of Jesus through Saturday night qualifies as a classic tragedy. Would you not agree? But Sunday morning transforms that tragedy into a comedy… the tables are turned, it all works out in the end, all’s well that end’s well! So, my intent was to highlight that little point of transformation. And as Jesus resurrection turns around His story, it will also turn around ours. That is what I tried to express.
Can’t stand Sriracha. For me, it’s Chili Garlic Sauce, all the way! Once you’ve tried that, Sriracha’s like ketchup compared to a good Bolognese. Or like a jar of Pace compared to your own homemade chili macho.
Hey where can i find Double Chicken sriracha in orange county? does anyone have any ideas where i can get it? I like this one a lot but i couldn’t find it in the asian supermarkets.
Just FYI, I see Sriracha on the tables of MANY small restaurants, street food stalls and noodle shops in both Thailand and Vietnam and even in Cambodia!
Sri racha is a lovely little seaside town and anyone who has been there knows this.
The ferry port there takes you to the beautiful Ko Sichang. Sri racha is known for its chilli sauce and seafood, it’s not dodgy at all.
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Sri-Racha sauce… have tried Rooster (with that green cap) and the Uni-Eagle… founded them in my little home town here. Now i have to look for the Shark and Double Chicken sauce to somewhere… and by the way, those bottles are so special…
Thai sauce are quite an impressive additive. I like the yellow curry sauce for vegetables.
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Sriracha chilli sauce is sometimes referred to as Thai Tabasco sauce, but it really is unlike Tabasco, being less vinegary, sweeter and more garlicky. Used at the table similarly to Tabasco sauce to add quick heat and chilli flavor to finished dishes, it is also used in cooking in combination with other flavoring ingredients. Perhaps the best known Sriracha sauce in the United States is the Rooster Brand, “Tuong Ot Sriracha.” I do not recommend this brand as it contains (completely unnecessary) preservatives.
Great post! I have that ubiquitous rooster bottle at hand. This is so helpful and inspirational.
Hi,
Just tried Lee Kum Kee USA) and Rolands (China). Personally like Roland’s best, then Rooster, then Lee Kum Kee.
Mike on Oahu
bad? or just a little discoloured?
Rooster contains Sodium Bisulfite so it can sit on restaurant tables all day. It’s not something I would put in my body. Shark and Double Chicken are ok.
I am living in Germany and tried a lot of sriracha brands (I don’t remember all the names). Some months ago when I was in Czech Republic I found the Uni Eagle Brand on an asia market. Near the German border the flying goose brand seems to be the most common, this one was in a small village far from the border. Reading the Ingredients I wondered how this would taste because, in difference to most others, it contains much less sugar. (First Ingredient Chili second Garlic) I bought it and I am very happy with it. I did not find the shark brand here but comparing to the ones that are available here it adds the most flavor to what you eat with it. Most others I can get here just cover the meal with their sweet or burning hot taste, you could eat styrofoam with them and would not even notice.
Although the low salt content can be a positive thing. You can add the salt yourself as much or less you want.
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Great article. I switched from Tabasco sauce to Sriracha a few years ago thanks to Reddit and now thanks to this article I tried the Shark Brand Sriracha which is my new favorite at least for now.
Oh, very interesting article, but I think when you compare the difference in chili sauce between Vietnam and USA, Tabasco must be mentioned. Nevertheless, I haven’t seen it or Tabasco is not the typical one of USA. Anyways, thanks for your post.