I believe I've found it. I also read that many restaurants also add rice vinegar to the recipe for this sauce. It's called Nuoc Cham dipping sauce and you can either make it yourself by looking up the recipe or you can find it on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M5GE6ZZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_SGM8EPHHT22DRW1H265M
Could be, but I think it's unlikely that a Chinese restaurant would serve a Vietnamese dipping sauce. This has a very different flavor from duck sauce, which has a pronounced sweetness.I believe I've found it. I also read that many restaurants also add rice vinegar to the recipe for this sauce. It's called Nuoc Cham dipping sauce and you can either make it yourself by looking up the recipe or you can find it on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M5GE6ZZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_SGM8EPHHT22DRW1H265M
The sugar is to balance the acidity, not to make it sweet.I have made n'uo'k cham, it's not hard. It is an amazing sauce. Even though there is sugar in it, I don't really notice it being sweet. Maybe that's because the recipe I use has proportionally a lot more fish sauce, Mine is also darker. Does the the stuff in that bottle look like the one you are used to?
Here's the recipe for the Blue Dragon n'uo'k cham: https://www.bluedragon.co.uk/recipes/vietnamese-dipping-sauce-nuoc-cham
Welcome to the forum, Jen!
That nuoc cham you mention is totally different from that duck sauce, and something I like a lot better! Great for dumplings, spring rolls, rice wraps, lettuce wraps, and many other things - the proverbial Vietnamese table sauce. Super easy to make, too, and much better that what you'll get in a bottle. Those in bottles, as well as many recipes I've seen, will be much sweeter - sometimes ok, but not something I want on most things I use it on.
This is my favorite recipe I've found. It has a hint of the rice vinegar in it, but the lime is the main source of the acid in it. Like anything with the fresh garlic, it does not keep well - a few days in the fridge, and it starts tasting "off". However, a mix of the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, and rice vinegar in these proportions stores well in the fridge just add a little less water than sauce mix, and a little minced garlic and minced chili pepper, and it's basically freshly made! Be sure to use a fish sauce that's good uncooked, like Red Boat, Trachang, or Golden Boy. And if you have an Asian market nearby, see if you can get some of those medium sized orange peppers in the produce section - not as hot as the skinny red Thai peppers (most common), and the flavor is better in this. I almost never use only 1 clove of garlic, but it is enough in this, letting other flavors through.
Nuoc Cham
1/4 c fish sauce
1/4 c freshly squeezed lime juice
1/4 c water
2 tsp white rice vinegar
1 tb white or palm sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Thai or Vietnamese pepper, minced
Mix all of the ingredients together, until the sugar dissolves.
That's it! Doesn't get much easier, with all the ingredients on hand.
You don't mash the garlic, pepper, and sugar in a mortar and pestle? The other recipes for nuoc cham that I have seen say to do that. I'll have to give this easier method a try.
When I mince the smaller amounts of garlic and pepper for this, and some other things that often call for mashed ingredients, they are almost as if they had been mashed in a mortar! I chop them up some, scrape them into a small strip of the ingredients, and place the knife or cleaver on it, and bang on it, then scrape it up, and repeat a couple of times. I use the mortars when I'm doing larger amounts, but even then, I chop it briefly, especially when cutting fibrous things, like ginger, galangal, and lemongrass, slicing across the fibers first.