Welcome to the camp.
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Thanks, and welcome!
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Thanks for sharing this .
So I found this page bc I’m looking for a substitute bc I sadly ran out of my stash of the heavenly Lan Chi Chili Paste w Garlic. I’m devastated as I’ve been using this since the 90s. I did randomly recreate it without trying years ago w a jalapeño that turned red and started to dry up on my counter… and I added garlic and salt. Has anyone found a similar tasting jar? Thanks!!!
Lan Chi is still available in some places - the proliferation of online asian store access may make it easier to find where you are…
All of my go to Asian grocery stores on the north side or Chicago don’t seem to have it. But their shelves in general are low in general. Amazon is also out. I’m going to make an attempt in Chinatown hopefully on Saturday but my sister also mentioned she hasn’t seen it there. Wish me luck w my attempt.
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Try Instacart for a search across stores - you can search a specific ingredient by pickup, which sometimes yields surprising results.
Thanks for the suggestion. That was also a bust for chicago. There was a store about a month ago that had it on the other side of town. When I went 2 weeks after I saw it listed - I should have checked again - no luck. I will try other zip codes again just in case. I noticed Lan Chi’s website no longer shows up too. 
Sometimes if you see it, you can call the store and ask them to hold it for you - that way you know it’s actually there.
I’ve done that with some obscure items in nyc, in case the online inventory is wrong, though sometimes the online inventory is right and the staff is wrong - happened to me once, when I hunted and found the item at the store while the staff kept insisting it doesn’t exist.
The things we do for what we want 
@Annie_Mark I am also from Chicago and have been looking for this with no luck. Have you been able to find a store or a similar replacement?
Hi! Was Googling Lan Chi and found this site. Wanted to share some recently uncovered facts. A computer whiz friend of mine was able to search Bills of Lading and sadly cannot find evidence of any Lan Chi shipped into the mainland U.S. since 2018. Friends who used to readily buy it on the east coast can’t find it now, where in fact I have never been able to find it on the west coast. Am surprised to learn that, for awhile, Amazon carried it. ALL THAT SAID, a friend of mine who has been sourcing it in her hometown of Honolulu brought back six jars from a trip a few months ago. She sent me two last week and will replenish when she goes back. So there’s hope, even if she’s the only person on the planet who seems to have been able to buy any recently at all.
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Hi - sorry for the delay. I randomly found it at Shop & Save on Devon/Milwaukee but those 3 jars are the ONLY jars I’ve found this whole time. I’ve tried several jars of chili paste and the only one I found to have a similar flavor profile is the Lee Kum Kee “Chili Bean Sauce (Toban Djan)”. Others I’ve tried were totally no where the same. Good Luck!
Annie, you probably got the last three jars shipped to that store, passed over by other customers because it’s an atypical product. You were lucky. I’m happy now that I have two, but fear the friend who sent them to me may not find more when she gets back to Honolulu. As has been noted, Lan Chi shut down their own American website. Doesn’t bode well.
A friend of mine visiting Honolulu found some bottles at a store called Bo Wah Trading on Maunakea Street.
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Wow I haven’t checked this thread for a few years and it looks like it is still pretty active. Lots of Lan Chi fans, I see lol.
After my stock up from the online store I linked back in 2020, I finally came down to my last jar. Like many have confirmed, this chili paste cannot be found in North America anymore. None of my previous online resources carry it either. Sadly, looks like these Asian stores that carried the paste have shutdown down during the pandemic 
However, thanks to @baron45 lead, I was able to track the paste to this store in Hawaii that he mentioned. I can confirm that the store has them. A family friend in Hawaii was able to ship me a few jars back in August. Jars made it safely to Seattle, WA.
So yeah if you know someone over there, have them ship you some. If you are vacationing, make sure you pick up a few jars to bring back to the mainland. My theory is that the company ceased operations in North America but it is still open and only ship in Asia and the pacific islands.
I cannot paste links here for some reason but just google “Bo Wah Trading Honolulu Hawaii” and you will be able to find the store’s Yelp page with other commenters confirming they were able to find the chili paste there.
Good luck and stay safe out there!
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I feel like I have a promising lead as to what Lan Chi Chili Paste with Garlic actually is.
The label on the bottle says 蒜蓉辣醬 “garlic chili paste,” but when you Google that, in either English or Chinese, most of the results are of a very different condiment, sold as 蒜蓉辣椒 (Chili with Garlic) by the brand Ning Chi or 蒜蓉辣椒醬 (Chilli Garlic Sauce) by Lee Kum Kee. This other condiment appears more liquid and more sambal-like than Lan Chi’s sauce, and is probably a completely different thing. The faint ad copy on the side of the Lan Chi jar, 古法釀造, “traditionally fermented,” makes it clear that Lan Chi’s product is more akin to Sichuanese doubanjiang or Korean gochujang than the Ning Chi/Lee Kum Kee product.
Searching around for more info about chili garlic sauces on Weibo, I finally came across a sauce that seems to match Lan Chi’s color, ingredients and paste-y consistency: a fermented product also called 蒜蓉辣醬 made by Limin (利民) . Their product seems to be based on a dipping sauce used in BBQ from the provinces of Shandong and Tianjin, the former of which neighbors Jiangsu, the province where Lan Chi is based.
Have any Lan Chi fans tried Limin’s version of Chili Paste with Garlic to see how it compares? Apparently, you can buy it in North America from Weee. It looks like the recipes for the sauce varies quite a bit, some recipes I saw online can even include tomatoes or apples, so there’s no guarantee this sauce would match Lan Chi’s version even if they share the same name and region. This blog post (in Chinese) collects several different recipes for the sauce, if any skilled home cooks want to take a crack at making a replica from scratch.
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Spotted two types of Tianjin-style 蒜蓉辣醬 at Marina Foods in San Mateo. They’re both made by the same company, Penquan. I purchased the one in the white packet, whose ingredient list looked the most similar to Lan Chi’s.
Here’s how it looked like once I squeezed some out at home
I used this sauce as a dip for a lou mei braised meat platter from Noodles & Things. It had a mildly spicy, slightly pickled, salty and savory taste, with a little bit of sweetness from the added sugar. I never got to try Lan Chi while it was available, though I saw it hyped up on blogs and such — does that look like the sauce to anyone else? Does the taste ring any bells?
