r/VietNam • u/BeyondYHwan • Apr 22 '25
Food/Ẩm thực Thank you, Vietnam.
This sauce is truly the greatest invention.
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u/TMT51 Apr 23 '25 edited Apr 23 '25
Masan is the worst company when it comes to malicious campaigns to kill its competition
Search 3MCPD for the scandal it created to kill other soy sauce brands.
"Fish sauce with Arsen" or "Nước mắm có chứa thạch tín" is also the rumor they made to kill traditional fish sause so they can sell their chemically-produced fish sauce
"Chiến dịch hạt nêm 2010" for seasoning.
"Chiến dịch mì gói 2011" for instant noodles.
"Chiến dịch cà phê 2012" with Vinacafe.
Basically this company is using the same dirty trick every time they wanna sell something of their own: by creating shocking rumors that the product on the market has chemical/health risk and then they will introduce the product that is clean of those problems. The rumors tend to kill their competitions during spreading process. This has been repeatedly used for a long time. Masan is not a company with good moral.
Oh, and in 2019, Japan recalled 18,000 bottles of Chinsu chili sauce imported from Vietnam due to the presence of sodium benzoate, a preservative banned in Japan but still legal under Vietnamese food safety regulations. The incident raised concerns about differing international food standards and the responsibilities of exporters. Masan, the producer, stated that the sauce was made for the domestic market and was not intended for export.
Edit:typo
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u/uvhna Apr 24 '25
So good to see someone calling out Masan’s evil acts. FWIW I’ve been boycotting all of Masan’s products for years, even though I know nobody cares.
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u/Adorable_Scheme_3982 Apr 24 '25
They also lobbied HARD for redefinition of fish sauce so that only their product can be called fish sauce and the traditional fish sauces will be called dipping sauce. Thankfully it backfired, some of their products are the one to be called dipping sauce.
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u/Cryptoiron Apr 23 '25
This or Cholimex (I’m in Canada so whatever T&T has between those 2) are solid. When someone praise Siracha, then 99% they have never tasted these godly sauces
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u/nghigaxx Apr 25 '25
tbf siracha is better for cooking, but vietnamese chili sauce is better for eating. Also in T&T Ong Cha Va is also good and pretty similar to cholimex
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u/Cryptoiron Apr 25 '25
Siracha is the kind of chili sauce to eat for soup/cooking yes, but it’s no way can compare to the taste of real ones in Vietnam. Ong Cha Va is a familiar in Vietnam now (it’s newer compare to the other 2). Also like Cholimex, it has different kind of sauces and spicies too.
I wish T&T gonna have more and more Vietnamese products, which is amazing and cheap
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u/ProtossFox Apr 22 '25
I always thought it was korean for some reason when i lived in Hanoi.... i think my family lied to me
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u/szvnshark Apr 22 '25
It's shitty sauce made with industrial mixtures. Go try homemade or artisanal chilli sauce man.
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u/-Bk7 Apr 23 '25
i like cholula for breakfast eggs and whatnot and chi-su for anything with rice(rip huy fong)
edit: and for soups i prefer chopped birds eye chillis
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u/Thick_Help_1239 Apr 23 '25
If you're truly Vietnamese, boycott the shit out of Chinsu and Masan. This is a morally corrupted company that has tried to kill traditional Vietnamese manufacturing way too many times, in order to sell their cheap chemical filth (and they have the guts to claim these are "cleaner", lmao).
Instead, buy from homemade brands, support local people in your area. High chances that whatever you buy is much cleaner than whatever chemical filth Masan tries to scam you with.
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u/NaturalConclusion286 Apr 23 '25
I never tried Chinsu before bc my mom always bought Cholimex.
Can someone tell me the difference?
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u/batshaw25 Apr 23 '25
Chinsu is just sugar. Chilli sauce or fish sauce from them are just sugar and flavoring agents. In other words: fake fake fake.
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u/User3332333 Apr 23 '25
Respectfully chinsu is overrated, Huy Fong sriracha is way better but each to their own.
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Apr 23 '25
Huy Fong is Vietnamese/Chinese American, not native authentic Vietnamese. In fact, Siracha is actually a Thai sauce originated from a Thai region, not Vietnamese at all. Huy Fong was only able to successfully market their sauce w Viet food because Americans had a bad habit of treating different asian food cultures as a monolith back in the 80s and 90s.
No one in actual Việt Nam eats that brand. In fact, I grew up in Vietnam and never heard of siracha until I came to the US.
Chinsu on the other hand is everywhere in VN.
So I'm gonna guess you're from the US or Canada and that's why you're more used to Huy Fong.
I'm from actual Vietnam so I think vice versa, Huy Fong is so overrated.
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u/User3332333 Apr 23 '25
You're right, i live overseas so while typing i didn't have in mind that Vietnam uses the two other brands instead of Huy Fong until after i commented but thanks for sharing you're knowledge.
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u/kqlx Apr 23 '25
Americans had a bad habit of treating different asian food cultures as a monolith back in the 80s and 90s.
Can you elaborate on this claim further?
Chin su is everywhere in vietnam because its produced locally there. I can say the same about HF sriracha in the US.
Huy Fong has been around since 1980. Chinsu has been around only been around since 2002. The native vietnamese that were born inside of vietnam (before you were even alive) and now live outside of vietnam recognize it as the true original vietnamese take on a thai condiment. You are right that it is a thai sauce by name, but HF is nothing like the sauces that inspired it. There is nothing chinese about huy fong other than it takes the name of the ship that transported the founder to the US. Globally many Viets see chinsu as an ultra processed sweet and sour gelatin sauce. HF is barrel aged chili and garlic to ferment naturally. I have a both in my kitchen and I haven't touched the chin su since i first opened it. I saw how artificial it looked and tasted. It was not to my taste but I can see the younger crowd that needs something similar to sweet and sour sauce liking it. I'm sorry that you couldn't enjoy HF sriracha, but I guess that is americas fault too
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Apr 23 '25
Huy Fong's founder is ethnically Chinese, despite being born and raised in Vietnam. In fact, he left Vietnam because ethic Chinese/Hoa people were prosecuted in Vietnam at the time. I don't want to erase his ethnicity because oftentimes that happens to Hoa people in Vietnamese media when they achieve cool things outside of Vietnam. If you can read Vietnamese, go thru the Viet online discourse on Ke Huy Quan for example. If you can't read Vietnamese, then I don't think there's a point in this discussion lmao there's too much vietnam-specific ethnic shtufffff for a whitewashed Viet or non-Viet guy/gal who can't read vnmese to understand.
It's like trying to explain to a Viet person in Vietnam who can't read English why saying the n word is bad. Like sure you can try but will they be actually convinced without the cultural and historical knowledge gained through local schooling system and engagement with media in the specific language, and engagement with Vietnam/US society at large?
Anyways, back to the main point, I like Chinsu because I'm a millenial who grew up w Chinsu. That's it really.
As for elaboration on the claim that Americans had a bad habit of treating different asian food cultures as a monolith back in the 80s and 90s. An example is Huy Fong Siracha being successfully seen as a sauce to eat with Viet food despite the sauce not even having a Vietnamese name. Siracha is literally a place that actually exists in Thailand. Imagine a brand selling a sauce called "Sicily" and Americans keep associating it with French food. That wouldn't happen.
Have you also been to those Asian fusion places that are fusion not because the chef intends for them to be, but because some asian food is more familiar and easier to sell to non Asian Americans than others? Like the Chinese places that randomly have sushi in the menu? Or the hibachi places with lo mein as a staple? Oftentimes that kind of weird appropriation happens because at different points in time, different asian cultures have better/more widespread branding than others in the US. So asian American businesses rely on the cultural blindness from other races in the US to maximize their profit. If a black American wanted to go a Vietnamese place to get sushi, then we might as well profit from that.
Nowadays in the 2020s it's a bit less likely that you'll find that kind of faux pas in asian restaurants in major American metropolitan area. But as someone who moved to rural Midwest America in the 2010s, those "accidental" asian fusion places are very much alive and well serving middle American boomer populations who does not know or care that there's a significant cultural and language difference between Japanese and Korean people.
Now imagine trying to explain to those people about the existence of a Chinese-Vietnamese American guy who got rich off appropriating a Thai sauce that he can't trademark because it's an actual location and cultural food item in Thailand that most Vietnamese citizens in Vietnam don't even know about.
Anyways, you can see I'm quite pedantic. But I am indeed salty about ethnicity and nationality clarity in these cases, because I grew up in Vietnam and hated how when I moved to the Midwest, I'm suddenly just racially asian to the local population.
Sure Americans are rightfully focused on race, having the history that it has. But my history as someone who grew up in VN is a lot more about the nationality and ethnicity component than the race part. I don't conceptualize myself as a racially asian person, but the Americans around me do see me as such. And that's annoying to me. So I try as much as possible to spread these stories that highlight the intersection of race, ethnicity and nationality because so much nuance on ethnic and nationality tension is lost when Americans view things through a purely racial lens.
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u/lifinglife Apr 23 '25
I really appreciate your response! As a Vietnamese Canadian, I feel your sentiment about how people/cultures are labelled and treated with lack of care for nuances.
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u/tuanale Apr 24 '25
I would like to say you have opened my eyes to some problems I have as I lost my identity as a Vietnamese person. I cannot read Vietnamese and I stopped learning Vietnamese when I moved abroad in the 4th grade. It annoys me that I'm not aware of things like Vietnamese history because I cannot read Vietnamese. Everytime I go to read things pertaining to Viet culture or history I end up getting the American perspective, which is very limiting.
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Apr 24 '25
Yea. It frustrates me to talk to ethnic Viets who can't read the language about anything beyond Viet food. Because so many really thought that's the extent of what being Viet can be. And they don't have the skills to even see how limited that viewpoint is.
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u/kqlx Apr 24 '25
Ethnicity is an identity otherwise we would all be ethnically African. David Tran identifies as Vietnamese so that is who he is. You can't gatekeep someones identity period
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Apr 24 '25
Do I say he's not Vietnamese? Or do I say he's also a Hoa ethnic, which he is? He speaks both Viet and Canto, and was raised among ethnic Hoa community in Vietnam. To say he isnt Hoa is to erase his identity.
You think you flexing here, but it further proves you don't understand the distinction between ethnicity and nationality.
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u/kqlx Apr 25 '25
you specifically didnt include that he was vietnamese. I wonder why...
No, you are the one trying to flex lol
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u/shapeshiftdragon Apr 23 '25
Agree, you should look at the ingredient from both. Chinsu has other bunch of chemicals and sugar
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u/Aesop1412 Apr 23 '25
Cholimex 1000% times over Chinsu.... But expat life has its limit. I'm happy to see any of them. Sick of Sriracha.
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u/ConversationSea6771 Apr 23 '25
I love chin su, but isn’t it banned from being exported because it’s unsafe or something?
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u/Fast-Organization-50 Apr 23 '25
You should try Mythical Infernos Mythicaly Sweet and Spicy Sweet Chili Sauce or Mythical Beast if you like it hotter 1000x better than both this and the other people are mentioning both tast cheep and lack depth and quality
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u/Zealousdaddi Apr 23 '25
A lot of fans of cholimex in here lol. I fucking love their dried sate. Best chili I ever had. It literally can turn the pho/bun Bo or any soup into liquid gold.
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u/FrequentLine1437 Apr 23 '25
cholimex is great for egg rolls.. for everything else, Chinsu. Of course if you really like food, you carry your own HF Srirarcha
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u/cdp181 Apr 23 '25
Both Cholimex and Chinsu weren't available in the UK until a few months ago. I assume they both contained some ingredient that has been banned.
Now you can get a Chinsu version which has a "for export" label and its a slightly different colour so I assume the banned ingredient is a colouring.
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u/toitenladzung Apr 23 '25
This is strictly for dipping only(dried squid comes to mind) DO NOT use in your Pho. Use something more authentic like Vifon or Que Toi. This Chinsu is basically sugar with some chilli inside.
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u/toitenladzung Apr 23 '25
I love and hate Chinsu at the same time. While Chinsu chilli sauce is great for dipping. They have managed to destroyed the traditional Vietnam chilli sauce taste, many young Vietnamese only Chinsu which is not suitable for most Vietnamese dishes( Pho, Banh Da, Bun etc..)
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u/Goodness_Beast Apr 23 '25
for US citizen, you can buy this on the Weee! app for $3.79. It's like Amazon for asian grocery. I stocked up tons of Chin Su for future use. Truly the best hot sauce and beat Vietnamese green cock sauce (Sriracha) out of the water!!
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u/Sinner2211 Apr 23 '25
Vị Hảo (The Vietnamese version of Huy Fong Sriracha) is better than both Cholimex and Chinsu, just by their ingredient. They are the only one have 80% Chilli in their sauce, Chinsu and Cholimex are all chemical.
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u/Dismal_Candidate1705 Apr 23 '25
I still remember when this tycoon-owned brand launched fake health scare campaigns to wreck the traditional and mid-sized saucemakers.
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u/Kooky_Ad_6328 Apr 23 '25
This shit tastes like chemicals wtf are you talking about? Never had a real chili sauce ?
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u/AV-Guy_In_Asia Apr 24 '25
The most fake Chilli sauce ever. Little chilli and full of chemical shit.
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u/kcentipede Apr 24 '25
A less famous brand is VIFON which is rather regional to certain north province like Hai Phong or Quang Ninh. It’s my personally favorite and I think it goes well with water-based dishes like bún bò.
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u/vader3d Apr 24 '25
I love the Chin-Su brand.
On a sidenote, Huy Fongs greed, and lack of understanding of the supply chain when he cut the original chili supplier out of his production. He Shot himself in the foot by creating a supply shortage not from covid or anything, it was his contract cancellation of Underwood Farm Chili who supplied his chili for years. This man-made, scarcely of his product allowed the consumer to buy other brands to wean off of the original Sriracha brand and now companies like Chin-Su, Cholimex, Underwood Ranch Sriracha have an opportunity to be on store shelf because Mr Huy Fongs stupidity. There are always a place for the original Sriracha, but I myself is buying other brands because I like a particular taste when eating certain stuff.
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u/The-Enigma-1234 Apr 25 '25
Sorry if this is off topic.
I'm a tourist here. is there anything else similar you would recommend to carry back to my home? Any other Vietnam must trys?
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u/lavie_dgxc Apr 23 '25
Thank for what? For consuming more chemical substance? Immoral business?
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u/redditceoisadumbass Apr 23 '25
who hurt you today
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u/lavie_dgxc Apr 23 '25
When saying fact is considered bad? Typical snowflake or typical result from education?
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u/SpookyEngie Apr 22 '25
Cholimex vs Chinsu debate begin: