This lasts until the moment it becomes howlingly clear that, although the aguachile negro at Mariscos El Submarino may not be as punishing as the goong chae nam pla at certain local Isan restaurants, it is nevertheless one of the spiciest bowls of raw shrimp in New York City.

Her toothsome pad Thai, at once sweet and semi-spicy, benefits from a few tiny spoonfuls of prik nam pla, a condiment of Thai chiles in fish sauce.

True Burmese fish sauce is almost impossible to find outside Myanmar; use Vietnamese nuoc mam or Thai nam pla, both of which are quite widely available stateside these days.

This fish sauce is now called nuoc mam in Vietnamese or nam pla in Thai, but the Chinese seamen called it ke-tchup, “preserved-fish sauce” in Hokkien—the language of southern Fujian and Taiwan.