I went out and bought a jar of Aji-No-Moto after reading this, because I remember using MSG years before in homemade stir-fry and what a huge difference it made. My first bottle of the stuff was found in a discount store on a shelf of generic-branded spices, simply labelled "Flavor Enhancer". I picked it up and cackled with glee, like I was subverting the public consensus. The bottle would later disappear, probably tossed by one of my more Woo-oriented housemates.

Yesterday I was in a warehouse-club store and noticed enormous 2-lb canisters of Ac'cent on sale, and the label prominently noted that it had less sodium than table salt. Monosodium Glutamate was not anywhere near as prominent on the same label, though.

Aji-No-Moto works in some foods, not in others. You also want to make sure you wash your hands after each use, because I must have accidentally got some in a cup of coffee and it made it taste different. Hard to describe. As if the sharpness and bitterness of the coffee had been slurred and smoothed over, but not the way sugar does it. The effect can be good if you're using cheap coffee that comes out too bitter, but this was already a decent quality bean.