SCOTT OLSON/Getty Images

You may have heard that Sriracha is facing some legal issues over its allegedly stinky factory, with city officials in Irwindale, California, suing the hot sauce maker and pressing it to mitigate its pungent emissions. The spat came to a head last month when the city declared the factory a public nuisance, and gave it three months to do something about the odor.

Yet David Tran, the company's founder, has insisted those complaints are off base. Speaking recently with NPR, Tran likened the municipal attempts to regulate his business to the sort of government overreach he saw three decades ago in communist Vietnam.

"Today, I feel almost the same," he said. "Even now, we live in [the] USA, and my feeling, the government, not a big difference."