Every month, Jimmy Ly usually orders nearly 150 bottles of sriracha from Huy Fong Foods for one of his Vietnamese restaurants in New York City. The sauce opens the richness of a pho broth or adds a blast of heat to a banh xeo, a Vietnamese crepe. Sriracha can “really hit the sweet spot in terms of spice, sweetness, acidity, just that tang.”But a few months ago, supply began to dry up. So he, like some other Huy Fong enthusiasts, bought two large bottles on eBay for $35 each, about five times the usual price, to use at home. For the second year in a row, Huy Fong, the maker of the most popular variety of sriracha, is facing production issues, the company said in a statement this month, because of “a shortage of raw material” with “no estimations of when supply will increase.”

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Persons: Jimmy Ly, It’s, Mr, Ly, Sriracha, Madame Vo, Monsieur Vo, Huy Fong Organizations: Huy Fong Foods, of, eBay Locations: Huy, New York City, East, of Manhattan