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Icefish and crab salad with spring greens

This is the appetizer. For the icefish and crab salad with spring greens, I prepare the bracken, hosta shoot, and rapeseed blossom, then steep them…

Smoked satsuki masu and turnip namasu, amberjack kombu-cured with sesame vinegar, seared scallop

This stands in for the sashimi course. We prepared dishes to pair with a fruity, slightly full-bodied red wine. Since soy sauce doesn't pair well…

Corn Surinagashi, Seared and Firmed Kinmedai, and Strip-Cut Shrimp Somen

Karasumi Mochi, Stuffed Lotus Root, Conger Eel Yawata-Age, Young Ayu Deep-Fried with Kinome, Tara-no-Me Wrapped and Deep-Fried

This is the second of the seasonal vegetable courses. For the karasumi mochi, house-made karasumi is sandwiched between mochi, coated in batter, and…

Kasugo Sea Bream with Okara, Issun Fava Beans Simmered in Syrup, Maki-Grade Prawn Umani, and More

As for the appetizer, kasugo sea bream with okara: the kasugo is filleted into three pieces, lightly salted, and marinated in a yuan-ji marinade…

Grilled Matsutake Steeped in Chrysanthemum Petals, Uruka-Dressed Dish, Autumn Fruits Set in Amber Jelly, and More

For the dish dressed with uruka (fermented sweetfish innards), the coating is made by desalting ayu uruka and pressing it through a sieve, then…

Scallop and paprika agar-set preparation, deep-fried wood ear mushroom dumpling, sweetfish simmered and steeped in dashi, Manganji pepper stuffed with sea urchin, taro stem and abalone with egg-yolk vinegar sauce

Since this is for August, I've built the whole presentation around a green motif to convey a sense of coolness. Let's start with the appetizer. For…

Rice-flour-fried sweetfish, Japanese halfbeak paprika roll, eel sushi, Chinese bayberry, water shield and mountain yam, ground tofu skin and salmon roe

And the Japanese halfbeak (sayori) paprika roll is meant to add a touch of yellow color. The paprika is grilled whole, then peeled of its thin skin…

Scabbardfish lightly salted and grilled, kuruma prawn grilled with salted fish innards, abalone sandwiched with wasabi miso

The abalone I used for the grilled course — I bought a large quantity of this back when it was cheap and in good supply. After rehydrating it, if you…

Thread-wrapped lily bulb manju, conger eel many-layered roll, bud-shaped shrimp dumpling, egg-yolk-simmered scallop

Last is the simmered dish course. The thread-wrapped lily bulb manju is also a standard item here, filled inside with seasoned ground chicken and…

Egg-yolk deep-fried mountain yam molded into maple leaves, kuruma prawn body-wrap, wrapped and deep-fried pond smelt, deep-fried fig in white-fan batter

For the deep-fried course's kuruma prawn body-wrap, a soft, bain-marie-set scrambled egg is tinted grass-green with a green coloring extract made…

Monkfish liver and rock tripe with wasabi vinegar dressing, simmered small sardines with ginger, river shrimp kakiage, matsukaze-style baked arrowhead root, and rapeseed blossoms

Ise lobster shinjo

The soup course is Ise ebi shinjo. I wanted to serve it in a slightly larger bowl, and I regret that the color ended up being red on red.

Habutae-Mushi, Jade Eggplant Ohitashi, and Liver Simmered Arima-Style

For the first course, a silken steamed custard, sea bream backbones are heavily salted and simmered at a rolling boil for four to five hours to draw…

Leaf-cut whiting, apple gratin, aigamo duck brocade-style grilled

For the crab apple gratin, deep-frying the apple whole first makes the skin easy to peel off by hand afterward, and it holds its shape well when…

Nanban-Grilled Aigamo Duck

For the nanban-grilled duck — a crossbred domestic duck — the boned duck meat is sliced, lightly marinated in a seasoned dashi blend for 5-6 minutes…

Air-dried barracuda, walnut-style / snow crab and Japanese trefoil in an autumn-brocade dressing / flounder sushi cured Matsumae-style with kelp / smoked giant Pacific octopus / beef tongue simmered in ginger and soy / chrysanthemum-cut turnip / kombu simmered in soy

For the grilled course's snow crab and mitsuba kinshu-ae, the snow crab is given a base seasoning with bonito-flavored vinegar; with any dressed…

Young sweetfish with okara, conger eel sleeve-shaped sushi, stuffed grilled bamboo shoot, fava bean and sea urchin fritter, lily-bulb petals

Sakura-chaya was founded in Showa 8 — 1933 — and is the third-oldest established ryotei, a traditional Japanese restaurant, in Mukojima, a district…

Sea bream haruyama-yaki, Ise lobster oil-grilled, bamboo shoot tosa-yaki, daikon steak

This is the grilled course. Sea bream is especially delicious at this time of year, so for the haruyama-yaki I keep it simple with a plain salt…

A Twist on Scallion-Tuna Hot Pot

This is the simmered dish course. This is a special twist on scallion-tuna hot pot. Shimonita leek is delicious. For the tuna, I use fatty tuna…

Yellowtail Sake-Lees Soup

This is the soup course. For the yellowtail sake-lees soup, since every kitchen today is short-staffed and can't spare the extra labor, I grill both…

Blackthroat seaperch grilled with sweet white miso, oysters grilled with yuzu, kuruma prawn coated in chestnut and deep-fried, beef rolled around burdock root, blanched chrysanthemum served in a hollowed bitter orange

The round vessel holds the grilled hassun course. For the nodoguro Saikyo-yaki, the nodoguro is marinated in miso. For the oysters grilled with yuzu…

Tilefish, matsutake mushroom

This is the clear-soup course. The kise-ginkgo — ginkgo nuts coated in a thin kuzu-starch sheet — is set in a hot water bath the same way as kuzukiri…

Grilled Ayu and Summer Vegetable Salad

For the vinegared dish, the grilled ayu and summer vegetable salad takes gazpacho as its reference point. It pairs well with ayu too, and was…