One of my kids is pretty picky, even sensitive to onions, but doesn't seem to pick up on the anchovies. She'll eat fish, though, depending on mood, so maybe she's not the best benchmark.
The anchovies disappear into the food. For people like me, the fish sauce never does, you just get a mouthful of rancid fish taste. People gave up trying to hide it from me years ago because nothing really seems to work.
"This was cooked with fish sauce" -> "This tastes fishy"
Chop 2-3 pieces of garlic and roughly the same amount of chilli into very fine pieces (same cutting board so they mix already while chopping) and add it. Then squeeze about a slice of lime. taste and up/down sugar/acidity/fishiness to taste.
Edit: Typically I use 3 tablespoons of nước mắm with 12 of water for the 4:1 (forgot that in the initial post, otherwise the sugar amounts and so forth make little sense).
Swooping in to say; Squid brand fish sauce[0] for the win!
0 - https://importfood.com/products/thai-sauces-condiments/item/...
I imagine it is like the people who are sensitive to cilantro, thinking it tastes like soap.
I make mapo tofu with 1 tsp each of fish sauce, oyster sauce and light soy sauce. I don't think anyone would think it tastes like fish or oyster sauce in any way, but it doesn't taste right at all without them. The same goes for many other dishes.
What kind of fish sauce do you use?