Soba shinjo, quail dumplings, late-season matsutake

This is the soup course. The soba shinjo uses soba, mochi flour, and Japanese mountain yam, so it uses every part that makes up the character for shinjo. The quail dumplings are made by asking the butcher, “please leave the throat piece attached,” so the crunchy texture of the quail's throat cartilage remains.
The palate course is rambiki wasabi. You don't see it on menus much these days, but I'm told the device used to extract fragrance, as in perfume-making, is called a rambiki.
You boil sake to burn off the alcohol, pour it into an earthenware cup holding finely minced wasabi leaf and the julienned trimmings left over from grating the root, then seal it with washi paper and leave it until it cools — the moment you open it, it's unmistakably a wasabi-scented liquid.

This was one of the dishes I wanted to try for an October menu. It's an arrangement of a menu by Chef Takeshi Komatsuzaki, served at an AAJ event at Sagami in October of Heisei 7 (1995).