UYE: Sriracha and Thai Chili Peppers Tasting

When people think that McDonalds has the best burgers, it leads me to believe one of two things: that they are either crazy or they just haven’t had a better burger. This was kinda of my inspiration for doing a blind Sriracha tasting. I thought it would be something fun to do and it would be somewhat educational for all the people who think that crap American brand is good lol So I bought 5 out of 6 bottles from Thailand since a bottle sells for a $ 1 each in Thailand, holla! It sells for about $ 3-​$ 4 here. I read something on Serious Eats and I thought the outcome of that test was BULLSHIT, so I decided to do one similar. Needless to say our outcome was different.
I would like to give a shout out to Laura A for her generosity and graciousness for having us over her place. It was a great place with great company.
The players:
Shark Brand is Chef Andy Ricker’s (white guy who makes Thai food) Sriracha of choice. This is a Thai brand but when I asked my mom and showed her the pic, she never heard of it.
Huy Fong is the crappy American brand that everyone associates with Sriracha in America that is made in Cali, that has a apparent shortage because of the fumes. The owner is Viet but he makes it in the US.
Sriracha Panich (Med) this is the creator of it all. When you ask a Thai person about Sriracha, this is what they think of. Kinda like when you think Heinz and ketchup in the US.
Sriracha Panich (Hot) this is the same company as the original just a spicier version. This was notably redder in color and this was my pic of choice for fav sauce.
2 Heinz variety for shits and giggles.
For the sampling, I thought steamed dumplings would be a nice neutral vehicle to apply the Sriracha since dumplings are awesome! So, the verdict kinda surprised me. I wasn’t too sure where this verdict would head since it was a group consisting of a Korean, a Filipino, a Spanish, a Taiwanese, a Chinese and a Thai. But I was pretty happy with the outcome. The winner with 3 votes was Sriracha Panich (med). This being the original and most popular brand in Thailand was fitting (at least to me it was). The second with 2 votes was Sriracha Panich (hot) and the final vote went to Shark Brand. The two heinz brands were sweet, like realllllly sweet. And the Huy Fong brand received no love. (bahahah)

I have to say, 60% of the time was being delirious off of hot Thai chili peppers and a variety of different Thai hot sauces, provided by generous Ben L. We’ve experimented, tasted a mix of hot sauce whilst indulging on red wine, beer, chocolate, rice, dumplings, cotton candy, fresh milk, gold fish, and black garlic. The human digestive system is an amazing phenomenon. We also took pleasure in laughing at those who instantaneously responded with tears of pain to the Thai chili pepper (s) brought direct all the way from Thailand. For one who has a rather higher than normal tolerance (I think so) for spice, these peppers kicked my tush. I never appreciated a cold glass of milk until that evening. Warning; I strongly believe green Thai chilies are much hotter than red ones. Don’t be fooled by appearance. Though eventually, some of us killed enough taste buds to not even know the difference.
The purpose of our gathering was to test a variety of Thai hot sauces in order to draw a comparison and ultimately find the best tasting. A group of us spice loving folks were provided with steamed dumplings plus samples of six different Thai hot sauce brands/​varieties to try, labeled anonymous A-​F. Of course, one brand provided was the all too familiar Sriracha that we, of course, all know and love. With a sheet of paper and pen in hand, we rated on a scale from 1 – 10 level of sweetness, spiciness, and overall taste. Brands included were (2) Heinz sauces, Huy Fong, Shark, and (2) Srirajapanich (medium, spicy). I wasn’t familiar with any, so it was a fun sampling. While the sauces in general were all highly tolerable in terms of heat, my favorite was C, the spicy Srirajapanich. Interestingly, the most votes went to medium Srirajapanich, which was my second choice. For overall taste though, I gave the highest to Sriracha, but it was much too easy to recognize this sauce next to the new, unfamiliar ones. In terms of heat and flavor, the two Srirajapanich were very similar, not surprising considering they were of the same brand. I personally noted a very good balance between sweetness and spice with the spicy Srirajapanich. The texture and thickness was also great, not too thick. Most sauces tasted too sweet with a lack of spice. Though, this was most notable in the Heinz sauces. Overall, results evidently shown that Srirajapanich was a winner next to the other brands tested. Original Sriracha still however manages to retain a special place in my heart.
Thank you Laura, for your warm hospitality, and Ben, for providing the wonderful array of hot sauces and Thai chilies to test. I ended up bringing second place winner Srirajapanich home and using it for breakfast the following day.

The gathering of many Unilocalers in Queens for a blind taste test of different varieties of Sriracha was EPIC! Believe it, there is more than one brand available in the world, not just the one with a red rooster.
So Ben L. picked up steamed dumplings to use for the taste test and the different sauces. We were given a bowl marked accordingly and a scoring sheet to rate sweetness, spiciness and overall taste on a scale of 1 – 10. Then we were to circle the one we like the best. End of the day, it was the original Thai brand Srirajapanich (Medium Hot style) that took the whole kit and kaboodle. After that we mixed up all the varieties for the master version and the took it up a notch by putting in fresh sliced Thai chili peppers. Clearly, this was not hot enough for us so we then proceeded to eat the peppers whole.
I ate two, first was a green one that had a slight numbing sensation on one side of my tongue. The next one was a red and it made my pale face match the color of my I heart Unilocal tee (super rare swag btw). Then, there was a few tears (prompting Sara S. to shove an iPhone up to my face to get a rare pic of the moment). I’m not kidding, there’s pics going to surface and Lori L. even captured a vid with a sinister laugh as the background music. I had some milk afterwards and some truffles to make it all better, plus a cake was sourced from Lady M which was the vanilla flavor.
After an hour or so, we needed more food, then headed to Salt & Fat to devour half of the menu in a tasting style fashion.

This UYE was a semi-​impromptu gathering of Unilocalers to test our love of spice. Initially set up as a belated celebration of Ben L.‘s birthday, we congregated to try and judge a variety of sriracha (there’s more than just one kind) although a series of (un)fortunate events followed, one after the other.
The intial set-​up: Six different sriracha varieties that included the popular Huy Fong, Shark, Heinz, and Srirajapanish brands. Taking a leaf from a SeriousEats food test, we paired each with half a dumpling and white rice to rank our favorites, and the official winner (the original Srirajapanish Medium Spicy) was declared at the end. Laura had the ingenious idea to mix together all six sriracha varieties, which we dubbed «Sriracha G» and deemed a successful concoction. Afterwards, a small but deceptively potent bag of Thai chilies was opened and a substantial number of these were eaten whole; needless to say, there were plenty of flushed faces and tears shed only several minutes later [1]. A gallon of milk proved to be the only remedy, and many cups of it were easily downed
After breaking into a 6″ Lady M Mille-​Crêpe cake and cleaning up the venue, the night was ended with dinner at the nearby Salt & Fat, which was a just ending for a wonderful day spent in even better company. After all, what would an event be without plenty laughter and (pepper-​induced) tears?
Many thanks to Ms. Laura A. for hosting a rowdy group of us, Ben L. for organizing the sriracha tasting and bringing the Thai chili peppers, as well as X-​man and Sara S. for participating as guinea pigs [2] in the experiment. ;)
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[1] Multiple photos and videos during said moments of pain were taken. Stay tuned (or PM me) for details…
[2] The final consensus: Green thai chilis are spicier than the red chilis. You have been warned.