Lots of Asians must like Red Boat, no wonder they cost so much more

[theking]

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This Fish Sauce Takes Vietnamese Food to Astonishing Heights

As a condiment, nuoc cham (or nuoc mam) is as common to Vietnamese cuisine as mustard on a hog dog bun. It’s always there, resting quietly on the dining room table or in the refrigerator, and makes a perfect dipping sauce. Today, Phan Thiet, along with Phu Quoc, a small tropical island off the western coast of Vietnam, rank high in fish sauce production. It’s also where Red Boat, one of the most notable brands of fish sauce in the world, is produced.

I took this photo of Red Boat a while back:

[Visualmon]

100% pure sodium?

[theking]

Well this is their claim, just "black anchovies and salt"... :

[Visualmon]

I see. I ain't buying it. I'll stick with the original. lol

[theking]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/17/haywards-red-boat-fish-sauce-chef-on-must-have-umami-ingredient/
Hayward’s Red Boat Fish Sauce chef on must-have umami ingredient



As a young child growing up in Orange County, Vietnam-born Diep Tran shopped with her grandparents in the markets of Little Saigon. And every weekend, her elders would inevitably stand and stare, disappointedly, at the walls of condiments, shaking their heads and mumbling that nothing available here was even close to the dish-transforming fish sauces back home.

That changed in 2011, when a determined Pleasanton ex-Apple engineer launched Red Boat Fish Sauce. Instantly embraced by culinary titans like David Chang and Andrea Nguyen, Cuong Pham’s sauce was the first premium, sustainably-sourced fish sauce made using a centuries-old fermentation process and only two ingredients: black anchovies and salt from the island of Phú Quốc in Vietnam. The sauce is produced and packaged at Red Boat’s factory in Hayward.

Tran, a Los Angeles chef, was among the earliest adopters. At the time, she was running Good Girl Dinette, her popular Vietnamese eatery in Highland Park. After one taste, she purchased multiple cases of the amber, intensely fragrant “first-press” sauce and recalibrated all of her recipes — pho, curry, porridge and more — to this one ingredient.

“I was evangelical about it,” recalls Tran, now the R&D chef for Red Boat. “I touched my grandmother’s Catholic medallion that I wear and said, “Props to you, grandma. I get you now.”

[theking]

Stopped by the same store and Red Boat is still the same price: