In my quest to find the mystery sweet hot chili sauce that had eluded me for so long, I picked up this bottle as soon as I saw it and congratulated myself for being a dunce. Of course! Maggi, a name synonymous (to me) with Asian cuisine, that brown bottle of a sauce called simply "Seasoning" with the yellow and red label in the cupboard or on the table of nearly every Asian home I ever visited or restaurant I frequented. This had to be it! Now, I bought this before I tried the Wicked Cactus Wrath Of The Tiger hot sauce (also reviewed elsewhere in this blog) and that one came pretty close to how I remembered that sauce and I enjoyed it a great deal, enough so that I will buy it again, but if this turned out to be the actual thing...Short story shorter, no, it is not. This one is a lot chunkier and midway between the gloppy sauces like Thai Kitchen and the more runny versions, like the aforementioned Wrath Of The Tiger. The taste is excellent, exactly what a sweet chili/garlic sauce should be, not too sweet and not too heavy on the garlic side. If it was just a bit runnier, the consistency would be nearly dead on the money. The heat level is probably a bit higher to non-chileheads, but for me, it was just enough to be there, nothing major, but a nice little sizzle to give it just a touch of bite. The labeling is mostly Chinese, Mandarin, if I'm reading it right, was probably imported and intended for one of those grocers or possibly a Thai or Vietnamese market.
Bottom line: In researching Maggi (still not sure how I could have forgotten them as a potential source -- at one time, I was eating their products daily), they have several other variations that appear to be a bit runnier, including a Thai chili sauce, so I may try to hunt those down. While this is not the one I had in mind, it is a wonderfully tasty sauce, albeit a bit on the thicker side for my liking.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 7
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 6
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