One Night in Bangkok

I just got home from dinner and hanging out with some friends. We ate at a new Thai food place called Bangkok Cafe. I do love sampling lovely dishes from various countries. However, as much as I enjoyed eating out delicious Thai, I can't help but wonder at one taste in particular that seems to appear in almost all spicy Thai cuisine. The taste of...soap? I swear, that's the closest taste I can compare to this particularly peculiar flavor in spicy Thai dishes. Why soap? Well, let's just say I'm familiar with it from having mom clean out my potty mouth when I was growing up. My best friend swears to me that it's the taste of ginger. Now, I've tasted ginger before, and I don't think that this spice was ginger...unless of course all those gingers I've tasted before were fake, dyed imitations.