Lee Kum Kee Black Bean Garlic Sauce (13 oz - 1 Pack), Aromatic & Savory - Perfect for Marinades, Braising, Dipping Sauces, Stir-Frying and Steaming Meats or Ribs, Vegetables, and Seafood

Living where I do — an hour from a major city, Asian pop. 3.4 percent — there aren’t a lot of Asian grocery stores. For some reason, there are at least three different Indian stores, which feels like more than enough, honestly, but no Asian ones that I know of, I mean, what you think of as an Asian one, with oyster and fish sauces, tubs of kimchi, long green vegetables, spinachy and leeky. Pre-pandemic, there was one, by the bagel place and the donut place and the Nepalese restaurant, but over the course of a year and a half, its shelves gradually depleted, the Asian owner-clerk replaced by a series of random white people who seemed so disconnected from their surroundings — like, so unable to advise on what was where or even what was what — that one of my friends speculated that the shop had become a front for something else. I mention this because my friend S. believes that you should shop only in locally owned stores, never on Amazon. This is what she manages to do. When we first discussed this, I said that it shouldn't fall to us — to everyday people — to have to make the moral choice to shop locally, when buying on Amazon is invariably cheaper and more convenient. There should be policies, I argued, that compel Amazon and companies like it to operate differently, such that it wouldn't be possible for the cost and convenience of shopping with them to be so much better than with local stores. That way, everyday people — many of whom are poor — wouldn't be forced to make the choice. S. agreed that this would be ideal, but she said that, be that as it may, people like us, with salaries that put us in the upper middle class (she and her husband are ceramicists and art professors; at the time of our conversation, I was working as an editor at The New York Times Magazine, while my husband is an English professor), should be able to manage not shopping at Amazon. We could afford it. She gets a lot of her food from the co-op downtown, or else directly from local farms. So could we. I was frustrated by the conversation, feeling that S. was ignoring the broader context and putting too much responsibility on individuals — on us. She, too, was frustrated, feeling that I was using the broader context as an excuse to avoid my own responsibility. Later, I concluded she was right. I wasn't sure if I could stop buying on Amazon altogether. But I told myself that, each time I bought something on Amazon, I'd force myself to come up with a justification. In doing so, I told myself, I might effectively shame myself into doing so less often. It worked, to an extent. For example, I started turning to the Asian grocery store before trying Amazon. It was in that shop that — back when the owner-clerk was still there — I asked for black bean sauce without sesame, to which my husband is allergic, and was guided toward a shelf containing at least three or four black bean sauces, of which this one, the owner-clerk said with authority, was the only sesame-free one. It wasn’t the best one by any means, he said, but — he double-checked the label — no sesame. I bought it then (serviceable, as promised), but by the time it ran out, the store had disappeared entirely. What choice did I have, then, short of driving to Denver, spending $60 in gas and wear and tear on the car, according to the I.R.S. standard rate, not to mention the environmental cost of my emissions, our persistent common tragedy, but to look it up on this site, which not only had it at a good price but could deliver it in time for me to use it in the dish I was planning, for which I had already acquired the other ingredients, the shrimp, udon noodles, carrot, lime, scallions, soy glaze, bell pepper (to be honest, had acquired them not by my own effort but as part of a shipment from the meal-prep startup we began using weekly during the pandemic to avoid grocery outings — which also included black bean sauce, but one containing sesame oil) and was just awaiting this key addition? It arrived on time and in good shape. It is serviceable still.

I'm of mixed decent and this product reminds me of my grandma's home cooking. Her black bean sauce did not come out of a jar, but this is a pretty good substitute. I just use about a teaspoon of this magic stuff to flavor a panful of stir fried veggies & tofu. Add a cornstarch slurry and you've got home made take out.

Great price, savory flavor, excellent packaging, quick shipment, awesome product.

Just what I needed

Classic taste! 1# Quality! I put this on everything!

Great product and meets and exceeds expectations

I love this sauce and I use it often when I cook Asian food. However, I don't like it so much that I will take a chance of getting sick by using the contents of a damaged jar. That's the way my last two orders have arrived. The first jar is pictured below and it shows a deep dent on the edge of the lid. The Safety Button was up and obviously the vacuum seal was broken. The shipping carton and the bubble-wrap around the jar was completely intact. This tells me that that damage occurred before it was shipped - possibly long before it was shipped. The second order, just received today, does not have a damaged lid but the button is up and sauce is leaking out of the jar. Now the bad part. I am STUCK with a possibly contaminated product that could give me food poisoning or worse. THERE ARE NO RETURNS ON THIS PRODUCT!! So be prepared to lose your hard earned money.

I used this to make lobster sauce a dish I haven’t had since 2005 after leaving New England