I use Ajinomoto brand MSG almost solely for when I'm trying to make a Chinese restaurant/takeaway-style fried rice, though it does occasionally go into other Chinese dishes I do. There are other sources of MSG as well I use - powder mixes from noodles packets, Knorr 'chicken' powder is another one.
When I was a kid there was a Chinese takeaway about a block from my house and my mum brought back some 'special' fried rice from there one day. I thought it was amazing and that there was a certain something about the taste of it that I couldn't quite put my finger (tastebuds) on. After a couple of decades of trying to recreate takeaway fried rice I realised that missing 'it' factor was MSG (amongst a couple of other techniques. You have to have the right balance of MSG and plain old NaCl salt to get it just right and I think I can make a pretty amazing special fried rice or 'Yung Chow' fried rice now.
MSG isn't a gourmet ingredient by any means. In a large part of the world, it's a very ordinary and everyday ingredient and it's not intended as a salt substitute, rather the source of umami.
When I was a kid there was a Chinese takeaway about a block from my house and my mum brought back some 'special' fried rice from there one day. I thought it was amazing and that there was a certain something about the taste of it that I couldn't quite put my finger (tastebuds) on. After a couple of decades of trying to recreate takeaway fried rice I realised that missing 'it' factor was MSG (amongst a couple of other techniques. You have to have the right balance of MSG and plain old NaCl salt to get it just right and I think I can make a pretty amazing special fried rice or 'Yung Chow' fried rice now.
MSG isn't a gourmet ingredient by any means. In a large part of the world, it's a very ordinary and everyday ingredient and it's not intended as a salt substitute, rather the source of umami.