Thanks, Ernest. Yamasa is a brand I have available at my local H-Mart – a bunch of different options from them, iirc. I’ll be looking for the Kishibori, too.
Sounds like you and I have fairly similar dipping preferences. For gyoza and deep-fried spring rolls, I like soy, sambal olek, and a combination of the two. I like Hoisin sauce, too, and actually have a bottle of the Lee Kum Lee right now, but rarely use it because it is insanely salty – to the point I find it actually ruins the food I put it on. Maybe I should try thinning it out with water, vinegar, or mirin.(?)
Right, I’m guessing it’s mostly for restaurant use where they would go through it quickly. It does have a little plastic stopper on the inside of the cap.
I’m a big fan of plastic bar pourers for bottles with tops that are useless.
These ones come in a pack of 12 for about $4. There are nicer ones out there, but these work fine – I take a small square of aluminum foil and fashion a haphazard cap for the pourer. Works perfectly fine. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71ZemYA5+FL._AC_SL1481_.jpg
This is definitely a good choice. I haven’t chimed in because we mostly use soy sauce we carry back from Japan (we are friendly with a family that make it near Kanazawa, so that’s our current choice), but we used these Taiwan imports in the past for sure.
Yes, we tasted a drop. During the meal, they actually served a soy sauce tea as a kind of non-alcoholic apertif. The drop of soy sauce was from the mother sauce. I’m not sure if the tea was made using the mother sauce or another aged soy sauce. The mother sauce tasted almost sweet with very little discernible saltiness. It had a very complex flavor profile, which I don’t have the words to describe, but much more mild, unlike anything coming out of a bottle from the grocery store.
I love a good sambal with some calamansi juice squeezed in but haven’t had it in a very long time.
With regards to the hoisin, do you use it primarily for dipping too (as opposed to cooking)? You can probably try to cut it with water. I usually don’t find it salty compared with soy sauce or some other condiments.
Does the hoisin that you have at home have the same flavor as the sauce you have when you go out for pho or Vietnamese summer rolls or when you have Peking duck (assuming that you go out for those foods)? Is it possible the bottle is bad?
I tried the Vat Bottom Soy Sauce a few years ago but prefer the above. Ordered it from Milu pantry (their chili crisp is a favorite). Looks like they have amber river but not vat bottom right now.
I had to lookup calamansi juice —- that mixed with sambal sounds great!
Yes, I use hoisin primarily for dipping. My bottle isn’t bad because it’s brand new, and tastes like a prior bottle I had (bought it again because my wife loves it). Yes, tastes similar to what I get when I get Peking duck, but saltier and more concentrated, which leads me to believe I may have some success thinning it out a bit.
I lived in Hong Kong when SARS broke out. IIRC, the virus somehow made the jump from civet cats to humans supposedly. I think the soy sauce wasn’t strong enough. Should have used hoisin.
